


What We Do for Revenge

by Twist_Shimmy



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Enemies to Friends, F/M, POV First Person, Revenge is a dish best served as often as possible, Welcome to the Bosmer Headcanon HQ
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twist_Shimmy/pseuds/Twist_Shimmy
Summary: Braith the Bosmer has been running from Valenwood across Cyrodiil, evading the authorities, for over a year now. By the time she gets to Skyrim, she's exhausted physically and emotionally, and focused more on getting by than making friends. On her quest for revenge against the those that hunted her, she meets many people, and every single one of them seems to be out for revenge, as well. While this does give them all something to bong over, whether any of them learn that revenge comes with dangerous consequences remains to be seen.
Kudos: 4





	1. I've Been Roaming Around, Always Looking Down at All I See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Braith arrives in Whiterun, and proceeds to make an _excellent_ impression on everybody.

I shivered and pulled my furs closer against my skin, putting my back to the tall tree behind me as I stared at the oddly-shaped building at my front.

Wood. Everything in this city was wooden. I could smell death on the breeze, and hear it in the creak of every door and bridge around me. Even the tree at my back was dead, as though she’d no longer had the heart to thrive and seek sun while every other one of her kind was sacrificed to the axe. The wind kicked up, and I shivered again, closing my eyes tightly against the chill. This was not a place where Y'ffre held sway, though the emptiness this thought brought me was familiar. Since fleeing Valenwood, I’d found few places where my deity dwelled. And since coming to Skyrim, I expected to find no more. This was a place that bent Bosmeri and broke Pacts. 

This wasn't the first time I’d sought shelter in a wooden building. I should be used to it, for as long as I’d been away from home. But walking up and grasping the door handle always felt like an impossible task in the seconds before it happened. It was a good thing that the wind was growing sharper to goad me on as the sun began to dim. I had no money. I had no way of keeping the people of the city from looking at me like an animal. But I’d been told that the fighters beyond the door in front of me were well-respected all across Skyrim, and I knew that I would need that respect to survive. Without it, I would just be some foreign elf, in a time where being a mer at all could be dangerous.

So I straightened my back, bared my teeth to steel myself, and walked across the courtyard and up the steps toward Jorrvaskr. I could hear shouting even before I opened the door, so I braced myself for chaos. 

The main room was full of enough food to make my mouth water. I had to pause and stop breathing in order to will my stomach to keep from growling. There were three long tables flanking the largest fire-pit I’d ever seen. Several Nords were eating at the tables around it, and behind them, two people were fighting: a Dunmer, and some human. A Nordess in interesting armor cheered them on from the sidelines. I was distracted by her for a moment, and glanced between the woman's armor and my own charred furs from the dragon at Helgen. Maybe, if I were able to settle in here, I’d be able to steal myself a similar set. It covered less than I was used to for heavy armor, but it also looked very easy to move in, and that was what was important. Don't get shot; _do_ get away.

The two brawlers had stopped in their tangle on the floor and were looking my way, which caused every Nord in the room to turn their head and stare me down. I resisted the urge to hunch, which was a habit I'd picked up recently when anyone took notice of me. 

"Who are you?" the armored Nordess asked as the others rose from the floor and walked to the back of the hall. 

My stomach rumbled loudly, but I ignored it and the question both. "I'd like to join the Companions."

The Nordess studied me briefly: a flick of green eyes, and then complete dismissal. "Talk to Kodlak if you want to join. He's through there. He will determine your worth."

I'd have to walk the entire length of one of the feast tables to get to the stairs the human had indicated. I kept my head high and refused to look down at it. No matter how hungry I was, I could smell undertones of fruit mixed in with the meat. I didn’t want any of what they had on that table.

Except I did. I wanted food so very badly.

When I opened the door at the base of the stairs, I found what seemed to be the Companion's living quarters. The two brawlers from earlier were standing in the hallway, nursing their bruised faces. If they hadn't met eyes with me immediately, I would have spent some time poking around, just to see what sorts of things these people had. Everything was wooden. Everyone in here was human, except for that Dunmer, who was giving me a wicked grin, as though he knew exactly what was going through my head.

Two important-sounding male voices drifted from the room at the end of the hall, and I crept for it on soft feet. Not sneaking, but walking quietly enough not to disturb the speakers. Their words sounded heated enough that I didn't expect quick discovery, anyway. But, I was only able to catch something about ‘blood calling’ and ‘picking sides’ before one of the men murmured "hush," and looked toward the doorway. 

I froze. What in Oblivion? I was _not_ used to being caught so quickly.

"Come here," said the one on the right. Old, with a tattoo on his face. 

I slinked into the room and let myself be inspected again.

The white-haired man regarded me pleasantly, which made my shoulders relax somewhat. They tensed again when the other man, with dark hair and painted pits around his eyes, glanced at me. His lip curled as he looked my way, and I felt a familiar hatred ooze into the air. This man despised meri. Y'ffre's teeth, they probably all did.

But there had been a Dunmer in the hall. I let that knowledge give me the bravery to greet the old man.

"What brings you before me?" He moved away from the hateful Nord, stepping closer toward me. 

"I would like to join the Companions," I said, trying to keep the hunger and chill out of my voice. 

The dark-haired Nord snorted. "You? Your armor is so burnt it's nearly falling off. What good would you be?"

"Dragons tend to do that," I said, forcing my voice to stay even. "I can get new armor."

The angry one laughed openly at the mention of the dragon, but the old man just studied me. "There's a certain fire of spirit." He glanced toward his fellow Nord. "Take her out back and test her skills."

"That's a waste of my time.”

I smiled at him, trying hard to keep the building hatred pooling in my core out of my eyes. "At least it will be quick?"

The look he gave me made it clear that despite my tone, he knew exactly what I meant. It didn’t matter. He would not be the first racist human I'd needed to take down to survive.

"Go, Vilkas." The old man turned to a desk and began sorting papers. "Tell me how she does."

The dark-haired Nord snarled, then, which made me nearly choke on a laugh. Everyone in this province called me an animal, and yet here was one of their glorious Nords, actually acting like one. When he whirled and began walking toward the stairs, I fell into step behind him, quietly enough that he looked back twice to make sure I was there. The stairs were awkward: I had to hang back to keep his armored ass away from my face. 

I spent the rest of the walk to the training area inspecting the massive sword strapped across his back. He was clearly built for brute force, but even as hungry as I was, I could probably dodge under him and get in close.

Hopefully. I needed a place to sleep. 

Vilkas stopped in the middle of a stone courtyard ringed with training dummies and drew his weapon with a relaxed, practiced motion that made it clear just how strong he was. He fell silently into a defensive stance with his greatsword crossed in front of him. His eyes met mine, and then flicked away, as though he'd just gotten caught staring at some deformity. 

"Hit me... if you can. And don't worry about hurting me. I can take it." He chuckled at his own joke, which should have told him just how funny it really was.

I briefly considered drawing my bow. It would be over quickly if I did, but that might not necessarily be a good thing. I needed this Nord to admit to his superior that I was good enough to beat him, and based on what I’d seen of his personality, this meant a solid trouncing would work against my plans. So I drew the sword I'd stolen from a fallen Imperial, still sooty and scorched by the fire that had killed its previous owner, and began to advance.

Vilkas' eyes widened slightly as he noticed me coming directly for him, and I saw the corners of his lips twitch upward. I kept my posture open, uncertain, and tired as I closed the distance, practically begging with my body for him to take a strike. At first he seemed determined to live behind his sword, so I struck it hard enough to knock it aside and leave him exposed. He staggered back a step, and I ducked under his sword and caught him in the side. He grunted and backed up one more step. I pressed my advantage, slamming into his side to knock him off-balance again, and then bringing my sword to his neck as he steadied himself.

His eyes were cold as he looked down the blade at me, but they still didn't directly meet mine. "You fight dirty, elf."

"You're big. I fight to survive."

This made him chuckle again. "It won't be so easy next time. You're good enough to be one of the whelps, at least." He flipped his grip on his sword and held the hilt out to me. "Go get this sharpened."

I raised an eyebrow. "Do I look like a servant?"

His eyes raked over me, their icy blue making the action seem even rougher. "You look like a burnt and bloody elf who thinks she's good enough to be one of my family. Go find Eorlund and get it done." Another moment of his staring eyes, and then a grin. "Be careful with it. It probably costs more than you do."

For a moment, I felt his throat in my teeth. I kept my fists from clenching, and took the sword from him instead of hitting him in the face. "Okay."

And then he walked off, without even so much as asking my name. Every inch of me wanted to shoot him in the back, rob this place empty, and then try my luck in another city. But I was so... tired. Just tired of running. And every city was going to be the same. They were always exactly the same, and had been since leaving home.

Besides, how long had it been since I’d been in one place for more than a day?

_Rob_ _him later_ , I told myself. _Once you don't need him anymore._

My stomach rumbled, and I felt myself shaking slightly from exhaustion, but forced myself to focus on the menial task I'd been given. Sharpening a sword for food was easier than many other options. So I threw the battered Imperial blade I'd been carrying off to the side and secured Vilkas' weapon to me instead—Y’ffre’s teeth, it was nearly as long as I was tall—and went off in search of a blacksmith instead of a hot meal.

I could see and smell the forge from the training yard, once I'd given my sluggish brain a chance to process my surroundings, and I resented every single step it took to reach the apex of the ridge it was on. My legs wobbled dangerously as I crested the top. Another Nord greeted me at the forge, looking old and surprisingly thin for a blacksmith. I held out the sword wordlessly, and the man took it and looked it over.

"Vilkas send you on an errand?"

"Yeah."

"They like to forget that they all started where you are. Don't let them boss you around."

And that was how I learned that Vilkas and the old man downstairs weren't in charge, not exactly. There was no one leader to the Companions, though the old man acted as an "advisor." Which was something for me to keep in mind as I settled in, I realized. It could make things easier on me if there wasn't one person in charge... but it could also mean that nobody would have my back who held sway over others.

The blacksmith asked me to walk a shield down to a Nord named Aela, who by her description was the tall woman in the armor I wanted so very badly. The steps swayed under my feet for a moment, but I made it back into the mead hall without fainting. Aela was downstairs, in what must have been her room, deep in conversation with an older Nord with one eye. Someone must have been spying on my little spat with Vilkas, because Aela knew all about it.

"I hear you gave Vilkas a thrashing."

I shrugged. "A thrashing would have been more enjoyable."

Aela laughed. "I like your spirit."

"Spirit" again. What strange people, these Companions. Most people I’d grown up with had openly wished I had less of it.

One-Eye looked to the doors. "Don't let him hear you two talk like that."

Ah. So Vilkas was an asshole to everyone. I snorted to myself, and then had to reach out and grip a nearby chair, trusting the dead wood beneath my fingers to keep me on my feet. Aela caught the motion, sniffed, and then frowned slightly.

"Here, let me get Farkas. He can show you to your bed." She raised her voice before I could protest, calling into the hall.

From behind me, I heard a heavy clank of armor, and turned to find an absolutely massive wall of Nord standing in the doorway, looking down at me with familiar icy eyes. Oh, Y'ffre, there were _two_ of them? Unlike Vilkas', however, his eyes looked almost kind behind the face-paint. As kind as a color that cold could look, anyway. I was used to warm, rich browns and yellows. Blue eyes as pale as this man's were lifeless, corpse-like.

"You called for me?"

"Yes, Icebrain. Take the new blood and show her her room, yeah?"

He dipped his head so that he could see my face more clearly. "New blood, huh? What's your name?"

I lifted my chin and stared directly into his eyes. "Braith."

His gaze flicked around my face, but he neither sneered at me, nor looked repulsed by my eyes, or by the bloody hand-print covering my face. "Nice to meet you, Braith. I'm Farkas. Come on, I'll show you where you can fall into a bed."

He turned and began walking down the hall, ambling at a much more relaxed pace than his brother had minutes ago. I followed behind, because his shoulders were so broad that walking beside him felt awkward. I hadn’t been used to males being taller than me before leaving Valenwood, and with Nordsmen it still bothered me sometimes. When they were as big as this one was, especially. 

I realized that he was trying to make conversation, and forced myself to listen to his voice. He actually seemed happy that I’d joined them, which surprised me. Then again, they had a Dunmer in their ranks; not every single one of them could hate meri, right?

Farkas showed me to a large, narrow room lined with single beds. "Pick an empty one, and it's yours."

"Thank you."

"And talk to me if you want work."

I thought about my empty coin pouch. "I could use some work."

He studied me for a moment, then gave me a small smile. "In the morning. Eat, get cleaned up, rest. Then we can talk business."

I felt myself bristle at his scrutiny, but tried to keep the emotion out of my face. "Thank you."

He waved and walked back the way he'd come, and I stood in the room and glanced around. There were two other people in here with me; the fighters from earlier, I realized. This Nordess and the Dunmer would be my bunkmates, after a fashion. They had taken beds in the room's corners, but I chose the one closest to the door. It was going to be hard to sleep underground, but maybe being close to an escape route would make it tolerable. That done, I set my nearly-empty pack on the bed and began bundling my charred and damaged furs inside of it. The cold air of the room hit me almost immediately, and I left my boots on after glancing down at the stone floor below the bed. 

There was a low table with a wash basin and a mirror, and I spent some time in front of it, washing the road dirt and dragon ash from my skin as best I could. My tunic and pants were dirty, too, but there wasn't much I could do about that; I didn't have a second pair of either. The bloody hand-print I kept on my face was old and dirty, too, but I left it for the moment. By the time I’d rinsed my hair, the water in the bowl was dark grey, and my roommates had climbed into their respective beds for the night.

I paused, listened, and heard only silence. That was a good sign. After listening again at the door, I crept up the stairs and back into the main part of the hall. The tables were still laden with food, though some of it was picked-over. I made right for a whole roast chicken, tearing off the entire leg and eating it in three bites, not even bothering to sit down. It took a moment to find a water pitcher, but when I did, I put it directly to my mouth, taking long, greedy swallows as my free hand pulled more chicken from the carcass. I barely paused long enough to breathe in between bites as I ate, but even then my stomach was insisting I wasn’t eating fast enough.

Wood creaked, and I whirled in the direction of the stairs. Vilkas was standing at the top of the steps, shirtless, hairy, and scowling.

"Do you always eat like an animal?"

I sucked on my fingers noisily and didn't respond.

He pointed at my face. "I thought my brother showed you where to get cleaned up."

"I did." I forced myself to turn my back on him and return my attention to the chicken.

"You've still got blood on you."

"Mhm. Get used to it." My hand-print definitely needed a refresher, but I wasn't about to wash it clean and then wait for an enemy to bleed for me to redo it.

He scoffed, and I felt my muscles go tense as I heard him come closer. He stopped behind me and reached over my shoulder to grab a piece of bread, intentionally accentuating our height differences. I spun and scowled up at him, and he took a pointed bite.

"I hear you want to give me a thrashing." I bared my teeth, and he laughed. "I'd say I look forward to the attempt, but..." He lowered his free hand to the level of my head and chuckled. "I don't think it will end in your favor, little elf."

When I stared at his face instead of replying, he laughed again. I stepped around him, intent on heading for the stairs, and to my relief, he didn't try to stop me. An asshole, sure. With a bad sense of humor, yes. Racist? Definitely. 

But not a creep. I'd sleep with a dagger under my pillow tonight anyway, but not because of him. It was just what I did in new places.

"Night, Vilkas," I called as I walked down the stairs. My stomach, now full, was demanding that I sleep.

The Nord didn't bother to reply.

****

I woke as soon as I heard footsteps in the room, but I also woke more rested than I'd felt in weeks. Uninterrupted sleep did that to a mer. I smoothed my rumpled and dirty clothes before putting them on and heading upstairs. Food. I needed food.

As I crested the steps, I saw that everyone else was already sitting, full plates in front of them. Most of them dismissed me as soon as they noticed I was there, but the big dark one—Farkas—gave me a wave and pointed to the seat next to him.

"C'mere, new blood!"

"Braith," I said automatically, and sat beside him. Not because he asked, but because it was the only unoccupied seat within dashing room of a door.

Farkas offered out a large plate of sweet-smelling breads coated in some sort of cream. My lip curled instinctively.

"No, thank you." I looked out over the sea of breads and apples for some meat, and found that the plate I wanted was, of course, in front of Vilkas. "Could you pass me that, please?"

"Eating like a person today?" He began passing the tray down the table, and the sound of laughter rippled with it.

I ignored him and focused on piling my plate with sliced meats. Farkas sat beside me, watching openly.

"You have something against sweetrolls?"

"I keep the Pact," I muttered as I bit into a slice. Despite the lingering, desperate tang of the starvation I'd been feeling yesterday, I forced myself to chew and swallow slowly.

"What pact?"

"The Green Pact. Y'ffre protects my people, and we protect the forest."

"They don't eat plants, Icebrain," Vilkas cut in. "At least the ones from Valenwood don't."

Farkas looked around the table, eyebrows slowly raising. "So you've never had most of this, huh?"

I shook my head and had another bite. Chew. Chew. Swallow. 

Next, Farkas looked upward, toward the ceiling. "Does being in wood buildings bother you? Is that wrong, too?"

"It bothers me personally, but it's fine if someone else builds it. And this place is too old to smell dead, anyway."

Vilkas spoke again. "Jorrvaskr is the oldest building in Whiterun. Ysgramor himself built it when he found the Skyforge."

I mentally waded through the syllables until they formed into words. "Who's Ysgramor?"

Vilkas made a disgusted noise, but Farkas chuckled. "He started the Companions. He also drove the elves from Skyrim. Well, not _all_ the elves, obviously." He elbowed me gently and grinned.

I recoiled, and focused on my food. Across the table, the Dunmer met my eyes and shrugged. Just _shrugged_. None of the others seemed to notice, or care, that anything was wrong with the conversation.

I had finished off an entire other slice of meat from my plate before I tried again. "So this is Jorrvaskr. Where is Dragonsreach?"

Vilkas looked up from his plate. "Why do _you_ want to know that?"

"I have a message for the Jarl."

He started laughing. "Really. I'll take you there myself, then."

I eyed him, but he just smiled. It didn't seem friendly, so I ignored him and turned to look up at the big dumb racist instead of staring down the judgmental one. "You said you'd have work for me."

Farkas took a drink to wash down his last bite of sweet-smelling bread. "Oh, yeah. It's local. There's a bard in town who needs to be taken down a notch. No killing. Just... rough him up a little."

"I can do that. Is he a Nord?"

"His name is Mikael, and yes, he is." Something must have shown on my face, because he frowned and added, "And I mean it when I say no killing."

"Okay, okay." I pushed aside my plate and rose. "I'll do that after I talk to the Jarl."

Vilkas laughed again, but I didn't let my shoulders tense as I left the table to sort my things. My furs were too far gone to be much use for anything, so I resigned myself to shivering and grabbed the Imperial bow I'd liberated from the corpse of one of the men who had held me captive at Helgen. It wasn't the nicest, but I could improve it. And I _would_ improve it, because I had plans for it.

That collected, I checked my quiver, and then took the stairs back to the main room. I was about to go out the front doors when Vilkas sauntered toward me. "I said I'd take you to Dragonsreach."

"The city is only so big." I pushed at the heavy main door, and he reached above me to put his weight against it as well. I almost tripped as it opened faster, but managed to catch myself in time. He chuckled, which I ignored, and we walked out of the hall and down the stairs. I could hear him clanking close behind me.

"Turn right," he said, and I obeyed. This led us to a long flight of steps. At the top I looked upward, and realized that a large building was almost directly in front of me.

"Is this it?"

"Dragonsreach. Olaf One-Eye kept a dragon imprisoned here, once."

The building was made entirely out of wood. "...Sure."

Vilkas went into the building with me, but held back in the lower part of the room, leaning against a support beam and crossing his arms. I ignored him and traipsed up the low, wide set of steps between the main hall and the throne. Three people were arguing there, and I could hear more than one of them mentioning dragons. One was a Nord, and had a circlet, which made me assume he was the Jarl. Beside him stood an Imperial and a Dunmer. When they saw me coming, they stopped talking and turned to me as one.

It took a moment to explain who I was, and why I was there. When I mentioned Helgen, the loud blonde Nord-Jarl nearly bolted out of his chair. I gave him the bad news that yes, there had been a dragon attack, and yes, there was probably the same dragon in the area, and by the way, the small town I'd stumbled through after my escape had begged me to ask him to help them. The advisors started arguing about what it would seem like to another Jarl if troops were sent to a border town, and I stopped paying attention soon after. My eyes were wandering over the room out of habit, making note of items that seemed expensive. There was a _lot_ of silver in the main room.

" _Elf_."

I jolted. "Muh?"

The Jarl had moved close and was looking down at me. "Come with me. I want you to work with the court wizard to find out more information about these dragons, so we know what to expect."

I took a step back. "What? Nooo. I'm just the messenger."

"You have more experience with dragons than anyone here."

"Yeah. Because I _ran_."

The Dunmer standing slightly behind the Jarl bristled. "Show more respect, Bosmer. You are speaking to a _Jarl_."

I held up my hands. "I'm just being honest. I don't know anything about dragons. I didn't even know they were real. There has to be someone else who can help your mage. I don't want to waste his time."

The Jarl frowned down at me. "...Very well." His eyes cut behind me, to where I could feel Vilkas standing and watching. "Are you with the Companions, then?"

"Yeah."

"Good. We will send someone if it seems that your services are needed, after all. Thank you for bringing us Riverwood's message."

"...You're welcome."

How was I supposed to leave this conversation? Could I turn my back on a Jarl? Should I walk backward down the stairs? Thankfully, he solved the problem himself by walking to the right, where I could see a large room strewn with books and alchemy equipment. I made a mental note that there were probably expensive reagents in there, and then turned to find Vilkas at the base of the stairs, openly laughing at me.

"What," I hissed as I stalked past.

"You have the tact of a mammoth." He fell into step beside me.

"And you have the social skills of an Imga." 

"I don't know what that is."

"Then either figure it out from context, or read a _book_."

That appeared to hit a nerve. "I read plenty. Do you? The words are printed on your precious trees."

"Vellum exists. But again, it's fine, if I'm not the one making the book. I just personally prefer to avoid plant products."

We exited the keep, and I tolerated him following me down two flights of stairs before rounding on him. "Where's Mikael, usually? And don't follow me there."

"The bard? At the inn." His tone suggested that this was obvious.

"Thank you." 

I turned toward Jorrvaskr, and could hear the frown in Vilkas' voice when he asked, "Where are you going?"

"To wash my face."

"Thank Shor," he muttered behind me, but I ignored him. Thankfully, once we were back in the mead hall, he left to annoy somebody else.

Once my face was clean, I put my battered armor back on, then set my weapons aside underneath my bed. I preferred to keep them on me always, but the big dumb one had said no killing, and that meant I needed to make it harder for my rage to ignore the order. Gods, charred fur stank. I needed money for new armor more than I needed the satisfaction of killing a Nord. 

Without my bow and facepaint, I felt incredibly unassuming, which would probably work in my favor for this. I left the mead hall and walked down the city toward the market, where the inn was, ignoring the stares all the while. There were very few meri in this city, which made my spine feel stiff and tingly.

The bard was easy to find. As soon as I walked in the door, I heard him singing, and saw him standing too close to a female patron who looked like she just wanted to start her day drunk and in peace. Well, at least I could help with that, maybe. I walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and then glared up at him when he turned and blinked.

"I'm in the middle of a performance, elf."

"You call that a performance?"

Annoyance flickered across his features. "Can I help you with something?"

"I have a message from the Companions." 

Before he could put down his lute, I decked him in the face. Blood fountained from his nose, and I leaped and caught him in the chest with my legs, sending us both onto the floor. I gripped him with my knees and hit him twice more in the face before he could put up his hands.

"Wait! What did I do?"

"I didn't ask." I rammed my elbow into his stomach, and he curled up and retched.

It finally seemed to occur to him to fight back. He reached for my hair, but I bit his hand, which made him swing hard with his other and catch me in the cheek. My eyes were watering so hard that it was difficult to see, so I braced my arm against his throat as he continued to claw at me.

“Fine! Fine! I yield!”

"Think hard on why someone would want you hurting," I suggested, and then smeared my free hand through the blood on his lips and jaw. He stopped struggling and stared at me in confusion, and then disgust, as I pressed my bloodied hand to my face, leaving a new print across my features.

"You're crazy," he said, and tried to shove me away.

I rose and grinned down at him. "You've got some blood on you," I replied, licking absently at a finger.

The other patrons, who had just watched the whole thing, let me leave the inn without a single threat. So that's what happened when you were with the Companions, huh? That was going to be useful. The last time I'd beaten up a human in a bar, I'd been run out of town. Maybe this place wasn't worse than Cyrodiil in _every_ way.

When I made it back to Jorrvaskr, I gathered my things and went for the back of the hall, where I found the twins sparring in the training area. I sat in a chair and watched them as I began replacing the string on my bow, making notes of their strengths and weaknesses, just in case. Both of them began the match covered in dirt, and ended it covered in more from knocking each other over. Despite Vilkas' strange obsession with my cleanliness, I had the feeling that he was going to be just as dirty at dinner as he was right this moment. More, if he decided to redo the face markings that had run from sweat. What were the two of them using for those, anyway? Charcoal? Knowing my luck, yes.

Farkas eventually noticed I was observing, and ambled over to talk and take a breather. Vilkas scoffed, but came within listening distance and began adjusting his armor.

"Did Mikael give you any trouble?"

I kept my attention on the work I was doing on my weapon. "Nah. It's done."

Farkas watched me for a moment. "Why's your bow wood?"

"I got it off an Imperial corpse when I was running from the dragon."

" _Dragon_ ," Vilkas muttered.

"You should ask Eorlund to make you a new one," Farkas suggested.

"No, I need this one for a while. I have plans for it."

"Yeah? Like what?"

I looked up at him to watch his reaction. "I'm going to kill General Tullius with this bow."

"Might as well have Eorlund improve it, then." He shrugged. "I bet that would feel better than working with the wood yourself."

...Huh. "I need to put my money toward new armor."

"Which reminds me. Let me go get your payment." 

Farkas strode for the inside of the mead hall. Since he hadn't asked me to come with, I stayed where I was, testing the tension on the new string. I thought that Vilkas and I were mutually ignoring one another, but after a couple of minutes, he made a disgusted noise and took a step in.

"Your face is bloody again, elf."

I focused on my bow.

He stepped closer, and I could see his boots in my peripheral vision. "You do realize that you're trying to represent the Companions, who are known for being honorable and skilled in battle?"

"What part of wearing the blood of my enemies suggests I have no skill?" When I looked up, he once again avoided my eyes. What was his _problem_?

"Wear pigments like the rest of us."

"Most pigments have ingredients that Y'ffre forbids I use."

Vilkas snorted and headed for the doors to Jorrvaskr. I remained in the chair, though I put my bow aside. Farkas had been right, at least, about me wanting to touch it as little as possible.

Farkas returned a few minutes later and held out a small coin-purse. "Sorry it took so long. I had to count it out."

I bit my tongue against the words that came to mind. He was being nice, and there was no need to antagonize him. "Thank you. Do you need me for anything else, or am I free to spend the next couple of days hunting to get skins for fur armor?"

"We spend a lot of time hunting. I'll let you know if there's another easy contract that comes in. We don't send new blood out on the hard stuff."

"Fair enough. In that case, I'm going to get some arrows and then head out." Farkas looked thoughtfully at me, which made me bristle. "What?"

"Why don't you take a day or two to rest before you do that? It's hard to hunt when you're tired from being hungry."

My fingers white-knuckled against the edge of the chair. "I'm fine."

"You're right. You're fine. But rested and fed is better than fine."

"You do know Bosmeri go into battle after fasting for a long time, right? We're used to pushing our bodies to the limit."

He shrugged. "Hunting's not the same as a battle. Not telling you what to do, obviously, but...."

If I stayed here, I'd have to deal with his brother. "I'll think about it."

When Farkas returned to the mead hall, I followed after him, and went down to the room I was sharing with the other newer Companions. Not eating for so long sometimes left me desperately tired, and another wave had hit. The woman who had been brawling with the Dunmer yesterday looked me over with open hostility as I collapsed onto my bed with a groan. When she saw the fresh hand-print on my face, her lip curled.

"What's your name again?"

"Braith. You?"

"Njada."

I rolled onto my side and put my back to the room before yawning loudly. "Can I help you with something?"

"No. I'm just trying to figure out why they let _you_ in here."

"If you figure it out before Vilkas, be sure and let him know. He needs all the help he can get."

Njada snorted, but didn't reply. I let my eyes close, and fell into a fitful sleep; my body might be exhausted, but my mind remained very wary of the people around me.

The smell of lunch roused me. I considered skipping it, because I was already tired of dealing with them as a group. Sadly, my loudly grumbling stomach reminded me of Farkas' comment about getting consistent food in me. The thought of Vilkas telling his brother how he'd seen me eating last night made my cheeks feel hot, but that was irrelevant, because that hateful man had likely mentioned it to every last one of them already. It would explain the laughter at breakfast. So I rose, and clambered up the stairs, and took a deep inhale once I reached the main room.

"Is that bear? Gods, I love bear meat."

A smaller, dark-haired human looked startled by this outburst, but Farkas grinned at me and pulled out a chair. "Come and get it. Some of us are sulking that we didn't get elk, which means more for the rest of us."

I considered the chair for a moment before deciding to take it. The meat was passed my way without comment, and soon I was stuffing my face as quickly as I could without it seeming like I was still starving. Lunch conversation was light, but that Nordess with the interesting armor—Aela—came in to join us, which made me realize what I was going to do with my evenings: maybe not steal the armor, since that would be obvious, but at least get a better look at it? As practice, for later, when I definitely _would_ be stealing it. I'd wait until they were asleep and try my luck with some creeping and snooping. Thinking back to all the silver in Dragonsreach, I considered stopping by there, as well. Silver would be cumbersome, though. Maybe there would be gems, or loose coin. I needed stuff that was hard to trace, and the Jarl’s silver would not be that.

Once I was done eating, I made the climb back up the stairs to the ridge to speak with Eorlund. He had arrows, but they were all wooden-shafted. I accepted them anyway. They felt terrible to my fingers, and I knew they were going to make hunting harder, but I was going to freeze to death if I didn't get new furs. No arrows, no armor, so wood it was. 

I told him about my plan to bring some furs back to get crafted into armor, and he named me a fair price, and even made an offer of trade: if I brought in wolf fur, he'd reduce the cost of my armor even more. Apparently the Companions liked to line their cloaks, gloves, boots, and just about everything else with it. There were softer furs out there that could have done the job, but these people clearly worked on tradition, and who was I to spit in the face of that?

I took the time to test my new arrows as I waited for dinner. They were balanced, and I was landing every shot, but I missed my Pact-friendly arrows almost to the point of pain. By the time I was done with target practice I was so homesick for Valenwood that I didn't pay attention to anything but the food at dinner, which for me was more bear. Most of the Nords ignored me, but Farkas nearly jostled me out of my chair when he nudged me with his shoulder.

"Hey. Do you drink mead?"

"Huh?" I looked up at him, and then realized that the conversations around us were pausing so that the others could hear, and judge, my answer. "No. You don't have the kind of alcohol I drink this far north."

Farkas frowned. "So honey's not okay?"

"Mead is _honey_?" Vilkas and a couple of the others laughed, and I bared my teeth at them. "How would I know that?"

"Ignore them." Farkas slid a tankard my way before filling it from a heavy pitcher. "Try it and see what you think."

It didn’t smell repulsive, so I took a careful sip. Sweetness and heat hit me directly in my veins, and I had to shake my head to clear it. "Y'ffre's teeth, this shit is strong." 

"You shouldn't have given her so much, Icebrain," Aela called from the other side of the table. "She's a fifth your size."

I met her eyes and took four long, deep swallows before setting the tankard down and returning my attention to my plate. This was apparently the right thing to do, because several of the Companions clapped and laughed. Farkas slapped me on the shoulder, and I realized Aela hadn't been exaggerating; the man was _massive_ compared to me. Another long drink of mead solved the uneasiness I felt over that, though. In fact, from that sip on, the evening became almost tolerable: I no longer felt homesick, and either the others were relaxed because I was drinking, or _I_ was. The end result was the same, and I managed to drain the tankard before dinner was over, only realizing afterward that meant my night of sticky fingers was going to be off the table. In the moment, I didn't mind. My bed was warm, and when sleep came, it was heavy and deep.

When I woke in the morning, I found that I minded mead a lot. My head was splitting, and when I appeared at breakfast, Vilkas' laugh felt like an arrow to my eardrums.

"What's the alcohol where you live like if a little mead leaves you like this the next morning?" He bit into an apple. Juice sprayed into the air in a mist around him.

I slipped into a seat as far away from him as possible. "I'm not a heavy drinker. And I don't think you could stomach _jagga_."

"’Jagga?’"

I smiled at him, all teeth. "Fermented pig's milk."

Vilkas made a disgusted noise and turned a little green, which immediately made me feel better. Then he spoke again, which immediately made me feel worse: "Is there anything tolerable about your homeland?"

I grabbed the pheasant breast I'd put on my plate and took a bite as I rose and walked for the stairs to the living quarters. "Yeah. For one, there's no Nords."

He literally growled in response, but I got the door between us fast enough to cut it off. I had my things collected for hunting and was walking out the front door before the rest of them had finished eating. None of them said goodbye, but then again, I hadn't really given them a reason to. Maybe once the hangover was gone, I'd feel bad about it.

The area around Whiterun turned out to be teeming with game. My fingers itched to take down an elk, but I tracked it instead, waiting to see what predators it brought into my sight. The plan paid off once the beast reached a ridge, and three wolves appeared, intent on their prey. I let the wolves do the hard work for me on the elk before taking two of them down with arrows. The third ran, and I let it go: this was already going to be a lot to carry. I got to work skinning the wolves before taking the useful bits of their bodies and spreading the rest out for the carrion-eaters. I'd have enough teeth to decorate a new set of furs and make them feel more like ones from home after a couple of trips like this. With any luck, Eorlund would be able to make me something in a similar style, too, if I told him what I needed. Heavier fur, though. And covering more. I was so tired of constantly feeling cold.

The elk took a bit more time, but I butchered it and dressed it anyway. I wouldn't be able to carry the entire thing back myself, but what I could manage would be enough to feed my idiot Companions at Jorrvaskr. I needed to make sure they kept tolerating me, and outbursts like the one I'd had this morning probably were not going to make that happen. So, laden with apology meat and furs, I began the walk back to Whiterun. It was hard work for a body that had been as close to starvation as mine, but I had the elk's liver as a snack as I went, and took breaks when I needed them. Maybe I should learn how to ride a horse properly; my breakneck rides through Cyrodiil had been an exercise in staying on, more than anything else. 

It was late afternoon by the time I made it back to Whiterun and began the climb to Jorrvaskr. Nobody was in the main hall when I entered, so I left the elk in the kitchen and went to find Eorlund. He was pleased with the quality of the wolf furs, and while I worked on curing my elk hide, we discussed the look of the armor I wanted made. He mentioned repeatedly that he wasn't as used to working with leather and fur as he was with steel, but I was in no position to be choosy. There was another smith in Whiterun, I knew, but it seemed pretty clear that it would be a bad move to use her instead of the Companions’ personal man. So I insisted, but politely. 

Hopefully politely, anyway.

The elk was served for dinner, and once the Companions figured out who had brought it in, I received several claps on the back which jolted me to my toes. Farkas tried to get me to drink more mead because "It made you cheerful last night," but I decided to take care of my head, instead. This gave me the ability to sit back, listen, and count the drinks of the others as they regaled one another with their exploits of the day. The dark-haired human woman had hunted bears, which seemed to be all she did. Vilkas and Aela had taken down a giant. One-Eye and Kodlak had apparently spent the day speaking with a scholar who had come to visit them, and I tuned out after that. All of them seemed happy, and were drinking heavily. Hopefully, that meant I’d be able to snoop in peace tonight.

As the others were finishing up, I rose and began perusing a small bookshelf. When I heard heavily booted feet behind me, I forced myself to turn and smile.

"What are you looking at, elf?"

"Books, Vilkas. They're called books. I hear they have words in them."

He scowled at me. "I know what a book is."

"Then learn how to ask intelligent questions." I turned my attention back to the shelf. "I just want something to read for a while before I go to sleep. I haven't had much time to relax recently."

"Do you have a specific topic in mind?"

"It should probably be something local. I don't know shit about Skyrim."

To my surprise, he crouched down and began reading the spines of the books on the lowest shelf before selecting one and offering it out. Looking _down_ at him left me so taken aback that I nearly forgot to take the book. 

"It's a traveler's guide to Whiterun," he said. "We've been here all our lives, so I don't think anyone but me has ever read it."

"Why'd you read it?"

He rose, towering over me again. "I've read every book in Jorrvaskr."

I didn't bother keeping the surprise off my face, though I probably should have. He scowled down at me again, and I shook my head. "Sorry. You all don't seem like you have a real need to read."

"I could say the same to you."

"Shows what we both know, right?" I held the book up between us. "Thanks for this." 

Before he could reply, I scuttled down the stairs and into the room I was sharing with the others. Above me, I heard chairs creaking and boots on wood as the others continued on with their night. Not the most relaxing atmosphere, but loud solitude was better than none at all.

The book turned out to be very dry, but it did give me an idea of where the more wealthy citizens might live, and that would be useful. It also gave me something to focus on as I rested and listened to the mead hall's other denizens wind down for bed. I waited until all of my bunkmates seemed truly asleep, and then waited longer to make sure that there were no more sounds from the hall. Once I was confident that I was the only one still awake, I slipped from my bed and began walking barefoot down the hall toward Aela's room. The stone was cold under my feet, and the rugs felt worn and old. 

There were several long tables between my room and Aela's, and I spent a few minutes rifling through the drawers. Most of it was junk: paper, charcoal, quills. There were a few coins, which I left, and more than a few forks, which I left with a sense of bemusement. I tried a cupboard, too, but the hinge creaked noisily the second I tested it, so I left it be and resumed walking. 

Aela's door was open, which surprised me. If I had my own room, I’d have the door shut any time I was inside of it. It was lucky for me, though, because it meant that I could stand in the entryway and peer inside. The Nordess was lying on her side, facing away from the door. It was a little hard to see in the gloom, but her room seemed lived-in, crowded almost. I took a step inside to see if I could at least get a closer look at her armor—

"What are you doing, Braith?" Aela didn't even bother to roll to look at me.

"Oh. Shit, sorry. I can't sleep. I was looking for a book."

"I thought Vilkas gave you one earlier."

"I finished it," I said truthfully.

"I'd stick to the shelves in the common areas." This time, she did turn to look at me. "You're new still, and I don't want the others getting the wrong impression about you."

I backed out into the hall. "Right. Sorry. Night."

I barely allowed myself to breathe until I was back in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering how the fuck I'd gotten caught. This was the second time someone in this mead hall had heard me creeping up on them. I knew I hadn't lost my touch, because if I had, I wouldn't have made it all the way through Cyrodiil and into Skyrim. No, I'd just apparently decided to take shelter with the most observant Nords ever born. How had Aela even been awake, still? She’d had six full tankards of mead before I’d excused myself downstairs. 

And I hadn't even gotten a look at the armor.

I fell asleep cranky, and woke in much the same mood. Breakfast was spent quietly eating as Jorrvaskr whirled around me in a loud Nordic spiral before I fled for the plains to hunt again. This time, I found a goat and three foxes, which meant another hide to cure, some pretty fur to trim it, and more teeth for decorations. I made it back to Whiterun much faster than I had the day before, and was able to check in with Eorlund and get my newest hide curing before returning to Jorrvaskr for lunch. To my disappointment, Vilkas was sitting at a table, loudly eating an apple and reading a book. I hoped that the book meant he wouldn't want to talk, but he set it aside as soon as I began picking meat and cheese for my plate.

"How was the book?"

Great. Aela must have said something. "Dry, but informative." I sat down close enough to seem polite, but far enough away to avoid the worst of the apple smell.

"You finished it already?"

"Yeah. Do you have a bestiary here?"

He thought for a moment. "I do. It's in my private shelf."

"Oh." I focused on my food. 

Vilkas let me sit in silence for several moments before he spoke again. "I'll let you borrow it, if only to keep you from trying to help yourself later."

"Thank you. I thought most things were shared here."

"Many are, for those who have proven themselves. It will take a lot more than punching up a bard to get you allowance into our rooms at night, elf."

"Point taken."

The main doors to Jorrvaskr opened, and I nearly sighed in relief when I saw Farkas. "Hey. Got any jobs for me today?"

Farkas walked over, helped himself to a pastry from a tray, and answered with his mouth full. "Nah. But stay close. We might have something for you soon."

"Okay." I rose from the table. "Another round of hunting it is, then!" And with that, I gathered my things to hunt for the second time that day, and practically ran from Jorrvaskr.

****

It took two more days of hunting for me to get enough supplies for Eorlund to make me new furs, and also that long to work up the will to try some nighttime snooping again. This time, I waited for an entire hour after the last footsteps sounded in the hall, and I didn't mess with any of the cupboards, just in case the squeak had somehow given me away. I ignored Vilkas' and Farkas' rooms, and decided to take another peek at Aela's. I just wanted to see the armor—

" _Braith_." 

I swallowed a gasp and whirled to find the one-eyed Nord standing in his underthings in the entrance to his room. I had a brief impression of a _lot_ of white hair before I shut my eyes.

"What are you doing?"

I opened one eye. Yep, still hairy. Shutting it again, I replied, "Pacing. I can't sleep."

"Go pace outside."

"O-Okay." I backed for the stairs, then spun round and took them two at a time, muttering "what the fuck _?"_ all the while. 

It was another hour before I felt like it might be safe enough to go to bed.

The next morning, Farkas found me at breakfast. "Skjor wants you."

I jolted guiltily. "One-eyed guy? Why?"

"He has a job. Wants to talk to you about it."

I washed down my bite with a sip of water. "Okay. I'll, uh, I'll go find him."

Farkas watched me as I backed away from the table and headed for the stairs, but didn't say anything else. That probably wasn't a good sign. I slunk towards One-Eye's room, and found him inspecting his armor.

"Uh, hi. You wanted to see me?"

He didn't look up as he began to speak. He mentioned that a scholar had come by the mead hall, which sounded vaguely familiar. He mentioned a place called Dustman's Cairn, which did not. And something about finding a 'fragment' of—

"Say that word again?"

"Wuuthrad." One-Eye looked openly offended.

"Okay. I can probably do that."

"Farkas is going along to be your Shield-Brother, and to let me know if you pass your trial."

"’Trial?’"

"We want to see if you're worthy of being a full Companion, or if you've just been...." he trailed off. "Farkas will decide if you carry yourself with honor."

I licked my lips. "Okay. Should I... go talk to him, then?"

One-Eye nodded, and then returned his attention to his armor. I took that as my cue to get out.

Farkas was in his room, also sorting out his armor, when I tracked him down. I watched him shrug his way into his chest-plate, then sighed. "So you're coming with me to...?"

"Dustman's Cairn. It's not far. We can walk there."

"I guess this is a good enough chance to test out my new armor. But I'm not clear on why you need to come with?"

He glanced over at me. "He not tell you you're being tested?"

"Yeah, but I have no idea what that means. Is this because I'm an elf?"

"That, or an elf who creeps around late at night."

I took a deep breath. "I'll go get changed." I didn't wait for him to respond before I left the room.

I had my things on and packed in less than five minutes, mostly because I owned so little these days. Still, by the time I made it up the stairs and to the main room, Farkas was pacing, and I had a brief moment of utter intimidation as he turned my way and looked me over. 

"You sure you're ready?"

"Y-Yeah." He moved for the door, and I fell into step slightly behind him. "Why, should I not be?"

"You ever been in a cairn?"

I shook my head, then realized that he couldn't see me over his massive shoulders. "No. Should I expect anything other than dust and bones?"

"Dust, bones, and draugr." When I made a confused noise, he explained. "Sometimes old Nords get back up."

"Y'ffre's teeth," I muttered. "I think I know why Bosmeri eat their fallen enemies."

Farkas nearly gagged. "That's disgusting."

"Have you ever seen a Bosmer necromancer? _I_ sure haven't." I skip-hopped into step beside him. "If your ancestors followed the same rules, we'd have a cake-walk in front of us."

"How do you even know what that phrase means? You don't eat cake."

"Big ears. I listen."

Farkas chuckled at that, then pulled out a map and looked around before setting off confidently. I followed after him, taking in the scenery, until he stopped in the middle of a field, pulled out the map again, and then turned about-face and went the opposite direction. I allowed this to happen three more times before I finally snatched the map from his hands.

"Where's the cairn? I can get us there. I've done a _lot_ of traveling."

He shrugged and indicated the marked spot on the map. I compared it to our surroundings, and then set us off in the right direction. We walked in silence, but it didn't seem particularly tense. The scenery was so distracting that I didn't feel like trying to make conversation, anyway. It had been a long, long time since I could walk a road and feel something other than fear of being so exposed. And though the plains were a far cry from what I'd grown up in, they were... pretty, in their own way. There was something to be said for being able to see your enemies coming.

Our route took us by a giant encampment, which I didn't find particularly interesting. What I _did_ stop for, though, were the mammoths.

"Gods," I breathed, coming to a full halt as I felt the ground vibrate from their footsteps. "I haven't seen one of these since leaving Valenwood."

Farkas paused and looked down at me. "There are mammoths that far south?"

I nodded. "Not as big. Some of the grounded villages herd them." 

"Huh." He looked between me and the mammoths, but didn't say anything. I did manage to start walking after a bit, though part of me wanted to sit and stare and do nothing else. Later. I could come watch the mammoths later.

The cairn entrance turned out to be a hole in the ground, which Farkas jumped into with seemingly no thought for his knees. I took the stairs, and inspected the door nervously as it came into sight. "Fair warning: I'm not that great underground."

"We'll be fine. We've got me." He approached the door, and rolled it open. The heavy stone groaned as it was moved away, and I felt my lip curl in response to the stagnant air that rushed out to greet us.

"Fuck," I muttered, and followed him into the darkness.

By the time we got to the atrium of the ruin, Farkas had fallen in behind me. Surrounding us were vertical tombs, with their corpses scattered onto the floor of the cairn. I took a moment of horror to process the dried bodies around us in a ring.

"...This is how you honor your dead?"

Farkas shrugged. "Used to be. Digging them back up's not part of the plan, though."

I locked my eyes on the nearest corpse and had to take a few deep breaths. This is not how I would want my loved ones to....

"Come on." A heavy hand rested on my shoulder. "Let's get through this. And be careful. I don't want to have to carry you to Jorrvaskr on my back."

I bared my teeth at him. "Would never happen."

He chuckled and gestured to the path ahead of us. I drew my bow, and began carefully walking, breathing deep despite the dust and trying my best to ignore how close the earth felt around me. 

The first draugr was a horrifying surprise. I shot it out of reflex, and then had to fall back and aim carefully, because Farkas had lunged forward fast for someone in so much armor, and was trying his best to hack it into pieces with his greatsword. Once it had fallen and was potentially more dead than it had been seconds before, I managed to work up the will to check it for valuables. Farkas scowled at me as I pocketed the gold I found in the thing's armor.

"What? They're dead. And it attacked us."

He shook his head, but didn't say anything. Thankfully, he seemed less upset by my pauses to pick the locks on the many, many chests strewn around the ruin.

"I'll share," I murmured to him as I worked a particularly picky lock.

He only snorted. "I don't need the money."

"Must be nice."

By the time we'd been in the cairn for half an hour, I’d started shooting every draugr I saw in the head on sight, whether or not it was moving. This made traveling much simpler, though there were still several times when we would come to a cross and suddenly there would be dead bodies yelling at us from all sides. Once, this happened on a staircase, and while I saw the trap ahead of us clearly, Farkas did not. In his effort to get to our enemies, he ran right through a rain of darts.

As soon as the draugr were down again, I moved to his side and began looking his arm over. Y'ffre's teeth, no one person should have so much muscle. Farkas hissed and jerked his arm away, but I shook my head and looked up at him.

"We need to get these out."

He growled, but held still while I carefully picked out each needle-like bit of steel that had managed to make it past his armor. Thankfully, his forearm had managed to catch the worst of it, so the damage was relatively minor. By the time I was done, his skin was covered in thin rivulets of blood, but he could move again.

I rummaged in my pack and wrapped his arm in an old bit of wool. "It'll still need cleaning, but that's fine for now."

He looked down at me for a few seconds too long to be comfortable. "...Thanks."

The rest of the cairn seemed simple enough, until we reached a room with a barred gate. Farkas told me to look around for something to open it up. I pointed at a prominent lever in a nearby alcove, foreboding heavy in my stomach, but he just shrugged and told me to go try it out.

When the grate slid closed behind me after I pulled the lever, I had a moment of claustrophobia so intense that it felt like my skin might crawl off my bones. It was only the annoyed face of Farkas appearing on the other side of the bars that kept me from losing myself to panic.

"What did you do?"

"What you fucking told me to!"

"Hold on, I'll get you out."

My senses were heightened by the panic, and so I noticed approaching people before he did. I was able to point, and he turned just in time to see a motley collection of humans and orcs appear behind him. Something about their weapons seemed... strange. They looked like the Jarl's dinnerware. Surely they weren't silver?

Then I realized how many of them there were. Y'ffre's teeth, they were going to murder him, and I was going to go back alone to the Companions, having lost one of their full members, and be... what? Kicked out, if I was lucky. Slaughtered, if I was not. I drew my bow and sighted one of them, breathing deeply to steady myself so that I could make the shot between the bars.

I ended up lowering my bow, however, when I realized that Farkas was chuckling with _amusement_. My confusion only deepened as his armor fell through his body and clattered onto the floor. 

When fur began to sprout from his skin, and his bones began to morph and elongate, I felt a brief moment of horror so primal that I nearly lost my grip on my bow. My mind stuttered over a phrase, over and over, as I watched him shift from man to wolf: _The Hunt. The Hunt, the huntthehunt—_

And then he was shredding into the others. One of them landed a blow with their strange silver swords, and the roar he gave in response echoed through my bones and woke something strange in the pit of my stomach. The part of me that had been raised Bosmer, who knew that shape changes happened _once_ at the demand of my god and lasted forever, feared for my life. I’d grown up on stories of the twisted creatures that lived deep in Valenwood, traveling in packs and obliterating life indiscriminately.

But the part that had been running for a year across human lands looked at him and saw _power_ , and craved some of it for myself.

Our strange attackers fell easily before his teeth and his claws, and I didn't need to fire a single arrow. I stood, silent and stunned, in my enclosure as the creature who had been Farkas ran off to the left and disappeared.

I kept still, listening hard, and counted my breaths. One. Two. Three. Four... and then the gate was groaning, and I was free once more.

He reappeared as I stepped out from under the gate, and began putting his armor back on in silence. I averted my eyes until he was decent, because after seeing him as the beast, my mind caught and held to the sheer amount of muscle and hair still present even when he was human again.

"Sorry," he muttered, sliding his gauntlets on. "Hope I didn't scare you."

The wounds from the darts were gone, but I had seen a gash in his side from the blow landed on him by our attackers.

"...Is your side okay?"

"Yeah. Silver takes longer to heal."

I just stood and stared, well past the point of awkwardness. Were they _all_ like this? Was this why I kept getting caught sneaking around their mead hall?

...Could I be like this, too? Y'ffre forgive me, but that much power could keep me safe in this strange place I'd found myself. I knew that I would never make it back to Valenwood; what did it matter if I became something that other Bosmeri would despise?

Farkas avoided my eyes. "Come on. We need to get what we came for."

When he started walking, I stumbled after. 

****

It was dark by the time we left the cairn. What we'd come for turned out to be a tiny shred of metal, which Farkas handled like it was a precious gem. I let him have it, ignored the road, and began leading us straight back to town, which I could see in the distance across the plain. Between us and it, however, was a strange blanket of steam.

"What's that?" I pointed helpfully, and Farkas looked in front of us.

"Hot spring. There's a few in the hold."

Warm water? I quickened my pace. "Good. We can clean your side."

"It's fine, Braith."

I shook my head. "If you're what I think you are, it's going to need some help." I had several of their swords bundled to my back, and had verified that they were silver on our way out of the cairn.

"Not if I just change again and eat something." he muttered. His voice was low enough, though, that I decided it would be better to pretend I hadn’t heard.

The stars had come out by the time we reached the spring. I planted my feet and stared up at my bloody, filthy Nordic companion. "Strip to the waist. We're cleaning you up."

"I can just get sewn up at home," he grumbled, but started removing his chest-piece anyway.

The edges of the wound looked burnt: the flesh had bubbled and pulled away, leaving a thick swath through his skin. I hissed when I got a good look at it, but Farkas just seemed resigned.

"Tell me about those guys. They seemed to know you." 

I settled him at the edge of the spring, and used bandages from his pack to wash the wound clean as he reluctantly told me. Apparently the Companions had an enemy, a group of vampire and werewolf hunters known as the Silver Hand. They'd had run-ins before. Part of me wasn't happy to have been put into the middle of what sounded like a very old feud, but most of me remembered the way he’d torn through them as I washed his wound as carefully as I could. He grumbled when I handed him the cloth and told him to wash the visible dirt off of him, but Y'ffre's teeth, I had no idea when he'd take a bath himself. I was doing myself a favor.

It started to rain when we reached the road leading into the city, which made Farkas sullenly ask, "Wasn't I already wet enough?"

I just sighed and led the way to Jorrvaskr. I needed dinner, and a bed. 

Unfortunately, Vilkas was waiting on the steps leading to the mead hall. "We've been waiting for you."

"Can you not wait inside, out of the rain?"

He ignored me and began walking for the back of the mead hall. When Farkas fell into step behind him, I sighed and followed after. 

All of the people I mentally referred to as the "senior Companions" were waiting out back, completely ignoring the awning and utterly soaked by the rain. Farkas didn't seem surprised to see this at all, and went to stand with them.

_Okay_. I sidled close, and then Kodlak began speaking. He was quizzing Farkas on whether or not I would make a good Companion, it sounded like, but the words also seemed memorized. Practiced. Like some sort of ritual. My instinct was to bolt, because after running for so long, it was hard to even think about being a member of a group.

...But this was what I’d been trying for, right?

I stared around at all of them as Kodlak continued speaking, but didn't hear their words until Farkas intentionally caught my gaze. Kodlak had asked something about fighting beside me. 

“Would you raise your shield in her defense?”

"I stand at her back, so that the world may never overtake us." Farkas gave me a small smile as he said the words, and it took everything I had not to take a step backward. I hadn't had anyone willing to stand beside me since... well. Since before Cyrodiil. Was it really that easy?

For a brief, sick moment, I felt terrible for fooling these people. I'd just wanted shelter, and they seemed prepared to offer me more. All because I'd found some scrap of steel in an old tomb? 

But then again….

I locked eyes with Farkas, and thought again about what I'd seen him do to the Silver Hand. Was it really so bad to have a place to stay if _that_ might be the end result? In the present moment, I wanted four things: food and shelter; to kill General Tullius; and, to become a werewolf. It wasn’t safe to want friends yet.

Even still, when Kodlak welcomed me into the Companions officially, I gave him a wide smile and thanked him for his trust. This was so much better than most of the alternatives Skyrim had to offer.


	2. Much Wisdom is Such Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Braith remembers how to interact with other people.

A few weeks after I was made a full member of the Companions, Farkas found me while I was pin-cushioning a target dummy with arrows. He stood behind me, looming large, as I got off three rapid shots to the thing's middle. Nobody in the guild drew and fired quite like I did, I'd noticed, and I had found several of them surreptitiously watching me when I came out to practice. The sound of the wood as the arrows pierced it made me wince, but it wasn't upsetting enough to keep me from trying to get better with this bow. I lowered the weapon, looking down at the wood of its curve, and to my surprise Farkas walked out to collect my arrows. 

He held them out to me, and I took them wordlessly. 

"The wood still bothering you?"

My eyes cut up to his face, but there was no judgement in his expression. "Yeah. I'm hoping that never stops happening."

"I was thinking about that. There's a couple of Wood Elves that run a shop in the Market District. Maybe they'd have arrows you'd actually like using."

I felt my eyes go wide. "There are other Bosmeri here?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Hunters. Brothers, I think. Pretty sure they're from Valenwood. They're across from Warmaid—"

But I was already off like a shot. I didn't even bother putting my weapons away. I sprinted around the side of Jorrvaskr and down the steps, only slowing when the guards in the major thoroughfare of the city began eyeing me. Pretty much everyone knew that there was a Bosmer in the Companions, now, but I still wasn't going to push my luck. 

I paused in front of the smith's and looked at the signs on the surrounding buildings. After a moment, one called "The Drunken Huntsman" caught my eye. That sounded about right. I hopped up the steps to the building, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

The inside smelled like roasted meat, which wasn't surprising, since the center of the room was taken up by a massive spit, on which most of an elk was skewered. Off on one side, turning it slowly, was a long-haired Bosmer with a surprising amount of facial hair. Huh. Very few of my kind could manage facial hair. Then again, maybe they'd have tried harder if they'd needed to blend in with Nords. And it probably helped with how cold the wind got out on the plains. 

The Bosmer at the spit gave me a merry smile as another voice said from my left, "A fellow Bosmer? Welcome, sister! How can we help you?"

I turned my head and found another attractive mer with even _more_ facial hair smiling at me. He looked a lot like the mer seeing to the elk. " _Nobody_ _told me there were more of our kind in town, and I've been here for a while_ ," I said in Bosmeris.

The mer at the spit replied in kind, and his accent immediately told me that he was from one of Valenwood's big cities. " _We'd heard rumors of you, but the Companions tend to keep to themselves. How is life with the Nords, sister_?"

" _Sweaty._ " Both meri laughed, and I grinned, showing my teeth. " _Jorrvaskr is kept very hot._ "

I took a minute to get to know them a bit. Anoriath and Elrindir, brothers, who appeared to have come from Valenwood for the same vague reasons I had. I felt a bit of disapproval when I noticed that they were burning wood for the fire, but realized that they'd likely have fewer customers if they used what was common in Valenwood for fuel. And hey, I had a wooden bow. They probably literally couldn't afford to be picky. I knew that feeling.

Eventually, talk turned around to why I'd come in, and I got us down to business. "One of my, uh, Companions noticed I'm not too happy with my wooden arrows, and suggested that the two of you might have something Pact-friendly for sale."

Elrindir nodded and began rummaging underneath a counter. "We have some metal-shafted arrows right now. Sometimes we get in obsidian, but those are costly."

"I don't think I'll need obsidian for what I'm doing." I stepped over when he pulled out a bundle of gleaming arrows and began inspecting them. "You make these yourself?"

"I do," Anoriath said. "Our father made the molds. I don't hunt with anything else."

He named a price, which while steep, was far less than he could have charged me, because beggars couldn't be choosers. I had a decent amount of pocket change, at least compared to how I'd lived for the past year, so I paid for a bundle of arrows with no regret. 

"Tell your Companion thank you for sending you to us. And stop in if you have extra meat after a hunt. We pay for bone and skins, as well," Elrindir said. 

I winked at them both as I quivered my arrows and slung them across my back. "You'll see me around, believe me."

I made the trip back to Jorrvaskr at a much more sedate pace than I'd set when leaving it. I really was going to have to thank Farkas. It never would have occurred to me to check the shops in the Market District, since I wasn't planning, at least not right now, to steal anything. I didn't want to risk the roof over my head and the steady meals I'd been enjoying. I already felt stronger than I had in months, and it was nice to stay in one place and hone my skills a bit. 

Sure, I'd have to move on eventually. It was inevitable. But for now, I could take the time to thank Farkas, and then maybe take a nap.

Ria, my bear-loving bunkmate, smiled at me as I walked into our shared room. "Hey! Did you go hunting today?"

I shook my head and began stashing my weaponry. "Nah. Just went shopping for new arrows."

She took a tentative step closer as she spied the quiver in my hands. "Are those metal?"

I offered one out. "Yep! One of the meri at the Drunken Huntsman does them for himself and let me buy some of his. I prefer bone arrows, but I don't think I'll ever see those again outside Valenwood."

Ria took it and inspected it. "I like these. Bone sounds like it would be more brittle than wood."

"That's part of the charm. Makes them a bitch to remove, and does more damage in the wound."

"That seems like overkill for hunting game."

I grinned at her. "Those are more the people-shooting benefits, like in battle."

"Oh! That makes sense. It means no picking bone shards out of the meat when you butcher it."

I decided to spare her and didn't say anything to the contrary as I took the arrow back. "You seen Farkas?"

"I think I saw him walk by the door a minute ago. He's probably in his room."

"Thank you." I grinned at her and left to hunt him down.

Farkas was in his room like Ria thought, standing behind the bar and rummaging for a mead. 

"I don't know why you have so much down here, when there's so much up there already." I pointed to the ceiling for emphasis.

"Saves me a trip up the stairs. Welcome back, by the way." He pulled another bottle and offered it out. "Want one? Maybe you won't run off mid-conversation if you've got a drink."

"Yeah, sure." He grabbed the bottles and walked for the little table in the corner of his room. I sat down with him and took the mead when he uncorked it and offered it out. "Sorry about running off, too. I was just excited."

He shrugged. "Nah. If I were in Valenwood and someone told me there was a shop full of Nords, I'd've done the same thing. Just slower."

"I wouldn't recommend running in the trees." I gave him a toothy grin and took a long drink. Immediately, I felt warmer. Y'ffre bless mead.

Farkas laughed. "Yeah. I'd fall out and kill myself. Not the most heroic way to go."

"If it makes you feel better, it happens a lot. You'd hardly be the first human to fall to your death."

He snorted. "I'll stay in Skyrim. Might fall in a cairn, but at least the drop's shorter."

Since I'd already seen him survive that fall once, I nodded. We sat in comfortable silence for a moment before he leaned his elbows on the table, shifting forward toward me.

"I've been trying not to ask, but Vilkas won't tell me because I don't think he actually knows. Do the trees really walk?"

I smiled at him to hide a sudden pang of homesickness that shot through me like a lightning bolt. "Some do. Most don't. Mine was grown for us, and she stayed put."

"I can't wrap my head around that." He blinked at me a few times and had another drink. "What do you do if you have to leave? How do you deal with your home just walking off?"

"They follow set paths. They migrate, kind of like birds. So you always have at least a general idea of where it is. They're loud, too," I added after another sip. "Which helps."

"Huh. I'm trying to think of what weird things we have in Skyrim like that."

I raised an eyebrow. "Other than the draugr?"

"Other places have undead. I can't think of others that have walking trees."

"Fair. And that's because of Y'ffre. Things that live in Y’ffre’s forest can do all sorts of things that can't be done other places."

"Like what?"

My grin widened. "I don't think you're drunk enough to enjoy that conversation."

"C'mon, Braith." When I didn't reply, he wordlessly drained his mead and rose to get another. "Fine."

"Okay, okay." I watched him for a moment, debating how honest to be. "Honestly, most any Bosmer from Valenwood I know would have shot you the second they saw you shape-shift. Be glad I've been outside the country for a while."

He popped another bottle of mead and sauntered back over to me. "Why?"

"Bosmeri can shapeshift. _Once._ What we turn into isn't pretty."

"What do you mean?"

"Y'ffre has a price for protection. If the forest needs us, sometimes we turn into... things. We lose ourselves, and our purpose becomes death. Indiscriminate death, which is why those of us left behind don't look kindly on shape-shifting." I took a drink. "It was a relief to see you change back, honestly."

"Well, all of us change back, so don't go shooting us."

I was pretty sure I'd figured out which of them were werewolves, but I wasn't about to ask. I still wanted them to make _me_ one, and I didn't want to accidentally offend myself out of the chance. Especially not when my chances of doing that were already high because of my glorious personality. 

"I won't shoot anybody in here. No promises for the rest of Skyrim, though."

"Just make sure you're getting paid." He laughed, which was good, because otherwise I wouldn't have known he was joking. 

I finished the rest of my mead and leaned in slightly. "Hey, so—"

" _There_ you are!"

Farkas and I looked to the door and saw his brother scowling at us. "Jorrvaskr's not that big, Vilkas," I said. "Want a mead?"

"No. We have a new contract. The priestess from the temple was kidnapped by bandits, and they're trying to ransom her."

Shit. "I am one too many meads into my day for this."

"Lightweight. You're also the only one out of all of us here who is any good at sneaking around."

"If they're trying to ransom her, she'll probably be okay until tomorrow." When I saw the look that _both_ brothers were giving me, I sighed. "Fine. I guess I'll be putting those new arrows to use sooner rather than later."

I rose, and Vilkas stepped out of the doorway and took my seat. "She's at Valtheim Towers, up the road past the meadery. Get her back to the temple in one piece."

"If I get myself back in one piece," I muttered as I trudged for my gear. Everything felt slightly fuzzy. Hopefully the walk in the cold would sober me up.

The sun was setting once I'd gotten my armor and weapons together and trudged off down the road. I had two new knives at my hips, which were going to shed their first blood on this trip, most likely. But the arrows, at least, would be familiar.

...And hey, at least I'd be able to freshen up my palm-print. That was a strangely heartening thought. 

I could see the towers long, long before I reached them. The sun had set, the stars were out, and I was sober and freezing my ass off by the time I was close enough to see that there was a bandit on the road in front of the tower doors. I paused, crouched in the long grass, and watched the structure for several minutes before getting any closer. Against the stars, I could just make out another person walking back and forth across a long bridge in between the towers themselves. The man at the door didn't seem very alert, but the one on the bridge did. I waited until their back was turned before nocking one of my precious metal arrows and lining up a shot on the head of the man near the road.

Breathe. Fire.

Anoriath's arrow proved to be well-crafted, and went true. My unlucky target hit the ground hard, dead before he was even able to send up a cry. I kept low, tilting my head up to watch the one on the walkway. They would likely notice eventually that their compatriot was no longer standing, but for now, I had time. 

I crept closer, keeping an ear out for other sounds, and wishing that I were a werewolf like my fellow Companions. I no longer wondered how Aela and the others had found me so easily when I was first creeping around Jorrvaskr, and this was a situation where improved senses would have served me well. I had no idea how many people waited for me behind the door to the tower, so I sneaked to open it as quietly as possible. Nobody seemed to be on the small first level, which was good, because if someone had seen me push the door open, my element of surprise would have been gone immediately. I paused inside and listened, and heard the faint creak of wood from the boards of the floor above me. The one time wooden floors were an advantage!

There was a chest in the corner, but I decided to raid the place once it was safe. I made a mental note of it as I climbed the stairs, bow drawn and ready to fire. The bandit on this level was sitting and reading a book. Beside her was a Nord woman in orange robes, who was bound at the hands and feet.

Well. And here I'd thought I'd need to kill every last bandit in here. If I were lucky, I might be able to sneak her out. I'd lose out on the chest, but—Wait. I needed to see if I could even pull it off before I got ahead of myself. I inched further up the steps, lined up my next shot, and fired. The bandit hit the floor with a heavy thud, arrow through her throat. 

I was about to congratulate myself on a job well done when the priestess screamed. Instantly, I heard shouts and running footsteps above and around me. I cursed and darted fully onto the second floor, whirling quickly to get my bearings. There was a ramp that seemed to lead to the rest of the ruin, which was good, because that would serve as a choke point. 

"Thanks for that," I hissed at the Nordess, nocking and drawing my bow again. The instant I saw someone appear on the ramp, I fired, and then had to dive out of the way as a body tumbled toward me. Unfortunately, this one got up. I unsheathed my daggers and lunged for the man, sinking them deep into his neck before he could strike. He went down, and I turned back to the ramp—

Fire in my shoulder told me there was an archer before I saw him. I was knocked back by the shot and nearly fell down the steps, but I managed to roll and stay mostly where I belonged. I felt the arrow snap as I went, and shouted in pain and revulsion. At least it would be easier to move with it broken off. I tested that theory by lunging at my attacker as he attempted to hit me point-blank with another shot. I knocked his arm wide, and then gutted him, which made the priestess scream again.

Y'ffre's teeth, it sounded like someone had just dropped an anvil on the floor above me. Someone in very, very heavy armor was headed my way. I hid underneath the ramp and waited, because the last thing I needed to be doing was charging into a fight with a well-armored foe wearing _furs_.

The ramp shook slightly as the bandit made his way down. I could see the end of a massive war-hammer in his hands, which was glowing faintly red. Fuck getting hit with that. I waited until his attention turned to the priestess, who was thankfully staring at him instead of me, and then launched myself forward, daggers aimed for his neck. 

The sound he made as he hit the floor was satisfying, though it did little to calm the searing pain in my shoulder. I turned to the priestess and pointed at the broken shaft jutting out of my armor.

"Thanks for getting me shot."

"I didn't know what was happening!"

I collected my weapons before moving to her side to unbind her. "What's your name? I'm a Companion. I'm supposed to get you out of here."

"I'm Danica Pure-Spring. I've seen you going in and out of Jorrvaskr recently, I think."

"Yeah. I'm new." I helped haul the woman to her feet, and then looked around. "Give me a second to explore this place, okay? They might have interesting stuff."

"I'm not leaving your side."

"You're very right about that. Come on." I took the ramp, and she came with me to the upper floors. I wanted to find where that bandit in the heavy armor slept, because experience told me that was where the spoils would be. After a couple of minutes of walking bridges and steps, I found a room with a large chest and several books. I stashed the books in my pack, then settled in to pick the lock on the chest. I lost two picks, but there were several potions inside which would likely sell well. I didn't know what they did, because I was terrible at alchemy, but I had hope that they would be valuable.

Practice, and pocket money. Could have been worse.

We also stumbled across what looked like an enchanted bow. It wasn't made of wood, and part of me ached to toss my Imperial bow aside for this clearly superior weapon, but I'd made a promise to myself. The bow was staying with me until Tullius was dead. So I gathered the new bow, but made plans to sell it. Maybe I'd have Eorlund walk me through some improvements on it before I did, so I'd at least get some use out of it. With the same idea in mind, I took the armor off of the bandit leader, too, though it made my pack _much_ heavier. How did people move in that stuff?

I finished off the upper floors by recollecting my arrows and gathering the bandit leader's war hammer, because it was possible that one of the Companions would want it. Vilkas or Farkas, maybe? By the time we made it downstairs, it was very clear that the priestess wanted to be on the road, but I made her wait while I disarmed the trap in front of the chest on the bottom floor. She'd gotten me shot, so it was the least she could do, really. This one had a decent pile of coin in it, which I happily pocketed.

Spoils collected, I finally turned for the road, and she and I walked through the darkness along toward Whiterun. Above us, the stars and moons formed a bright whorl in the sky. I'd seen this sight a few times when I was running through Cyrodiil, but they all seemed brighter in the north.

"Kynareth bless you for saving me," Danica said after a few minutes.

"I like Kynareth," I said. "She makes sense."

"If you want, you can come by the temple and get your shoulder seen to."

I winced. The arrow was wooden, and I knew I was going to act like an idiot about that when it came out. I was surprised to realize that I would rather act like an idiot around the Companions than the priestess and her helpers. That was a level of familiarity I hadn't realized I'd reached with my recent housemates. 

"Thank you, but I can take care of it."

Maybe I'd ask Farkas. He seemed to understand that I was uncomfortable with wooden things, and I'd already helped him clean a wound of his own. Any Companion had to know how to cut an arrow out, right? I'd seen them all come back from jobs beaten in many different ways since I'd joined up with them. First aid had to be part of the deal, since none of them were _dead_. Though Farkas had mentioned something about werewolves being able to heal. 

I got Danica through the main gates, and the two of us set off for our respective buildings immediately. I paused at the alchemist's, but she was closed, so I resigned myself to selling my goods tomorrow. Fair enough. I was pretty bloody from the arrow, anyway. Getting that out of my furs wasn’t going to be fun.

The fire in Jorrvaskr's main hall was burning low, and none of the Companions were in sight as I came in. I immediately went down the stairs and started to look around for Farkas. Thankfully, it sounded like people were still awake in their rooms. Hopefully that meant that I wouldn't disturb him. Two male voices came clear as I approached Farkas' room, and as I crossed the doorway, I found the brothers both right where I'd left them, only with a small fortress of mead bottles on the table.

"Fuck," I muttered.

Farkas looked up. "Braith! Wait. You're bleeding." He tried to rise, but swayed once he was on his feet.

"Yeah, yeah I am. Wanna help with that?"

"Sit down, Icebrain," Vilkas said. "You're too drunk to do anything." He stood and began removing his gloves. Unlike his brother, his hands were steady, but....

"Whoa, wait. I'd rather Farkas helped me with this. I already cleaned up one of his wounds. He basically owes me."

Vilkas looked sharply at his brother. "You let her near your blood? _Idiot_."

"You ever tried telling her no before?"

I had to laugh, despite myself. Though, did that mean that their shape-shifting ability was spread by blood? That was something interesting to file away, just in case. If they didn't want to turn me themselves, maybe I could just accidentally infect myself while trying to 'help.'

Vilkas indicated the chair he'd just left. "Sit. I'll be right back with supplies."

I slumped into the chair and frowned over at Farkas. "He any good at this?"

"Yeah. We've all patched each other up before. Speaking of. You'll need out of your armor." When I groaned, he walked over. "Let me help. I might be too drunk to cut, but I'm not too drunk to get your top off."

I stared at him, blinking rapidly.

"...Oh. To not tweak the arrow, Braith."

"Sure, fine." I settled back in the chair as he loomed in close and began inspecting my armor. 

"The mantle comes off first?"

"Yeah." I helpfully untied it. Since it was pierced to me with the broken shaft, it went nowhere.

"Hold the layer underneath it." When I put my hand up to obey, he took the mantle on either side of the arrow and gently began to lift, pulling both sides at once. I hissed as the arrow took some pressure, but it came off cleanly. Farkas set it aside, and then looked at my top.

"It's all one piece," I said.

"Okay. Arms up. I'll get it off the arrow, then pull it straight up."

My muscle screamed as I raised my arm. I wasn't able to lift it all the way, but thankfully the hides were so loose that Farkas managed to pull the top off anyway.

"You okay?" He looked down at me from where he stood, and I felt very small.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"I'll go put these in your room." Farkas collected my bloodied armor and left, still swaying slightly. When he exited the room, I sighed and sank into the chair.

My respite was short-lived. Vilkas reappeared, holding a bowl of water, cloths, and other ominous things. When I saw the cloth and bandages, I raised an eyebrow.

"Those wool?"

"No." He set the items down on the table in front of me. "I've done some reading about the Green Pact. You can use these things if other people make them."

"Sure, I _can_. That doesn't mean I want to. Just because some Bosmeri drink wine and import wood for building doesn't mean all of us are comfortable doing that."

"Hmph. We don't have any other bandages."

Yet again, I repeated to myself that beggars couldn't be choosers. "...Okay."

He pulled the other chair close and sat down next to me. "I see my brother managed the armor, but not the shirt."

"The shirt's easy." I carefully eased it off the arrow, then pulled it over my head with my good arm, holding it to my front once it was free of me. Y'ffre's teeth. Of all the people to be shirtless in front of. I felt my face flush slightly, and was incredibly thankful for my face-print.

Farkas chose that moment to wobble back in. He took one look at me and immediately averted his eyes. "Maybe we should have gotten Aela."

"It's fine," Vilkas snapped as he leaned in to inspect the wound. As he poked at it, blood oozed down my skin toward my chest.

"Hey, Farkas, can you get me a damp cloth from your washbasin?" I tried to keep the pain out of my voice, and was moderately successful.

"Yeah, sure." 

When he offered it out, I took it with my good arm and began wiping my face clean.

"Could you wait to do that?" Vilkas grumbled.

"You've got plenty of room." I turned my head away from Vilkas and kept scrubbing the blood off my face.

He sighed deeply, but picked up the little knife that had been sitting on the table and brought it to my skin. "Slight pinch."

"'Slight pinch,' he says," I muttered, which turned into a yelp as the blade pierced my skin. I dropped the cloth in response to the pain, which hit the floor with a damp splat. Farkas grabbed my now-free hand, and I squeezed it hard and tried to ignore how hard my eyes were watering.

Vilkas cursed and pressed a cloth to my shoulder to staunch the bleeding. "The damn thing splintered."

I felt suddenly light-headed. "There are bits of wood in me?"

"Keep her talking, Icebrain." I felt Vilkas' finger at the wound.

"Hey. Look at me."

I forced myself to open my eyes and tilt them up at his face. His eyes met mine, and I was once again surprised by how pale they were. Nords had very strange eyes.

He gave me a little smile. "It's gonna be okay. He'll get everything cleaned out. How'd you get shot?"

His brother continued poking and prodding at me, but I kept my eyes on Farkas. He was trying to distract me, and I was going to let him. "The priestess screamed when I killed her guard. Brought everyone down on me. I'd managed to sneak right up until that point, too."

"It's probably lucky you're not more cut up."

"Not luck," I gasped. I was pretty sure Vilkas had just slipped a finger _into_ my cut, and was easing the rest of the arrow out. "Skill."

"Thattagirl." Farkas grinned at me. He looked pleasant when he smiled. It made me wonder if Vilkas ever did, and what he would look like if so.

"I'm done," Vilkas announced, leaning back. Farkas dropped my hand, and his brother knelt, then held something out to me.

My shirt.

"Gods," I muttered, and pulled it close to my front again. Vilkas reached for the bandages to begin trussing me up, but I stopped him. "Wait."

The brothers stared as I covered the wound with my hand, waiting until it was thoroughly saturated before pressing it across my face. Farkas chuckled, but Vilkas sighed.

"I was hoping you'd washed that off for good."

"Sorry. Not gonna happen."

"Can I clean you up now?"

Interesting words from an unwashed Nord, but I nodded and moved my arm so he'd be able to more easily maneuver the bandages. "I can't believe I'm letting you wrap me up in this."

"Enjoy the personal growth."

Farkas frowned at his brother. "If it makes her uncomfortable, it makes her uncomfortable. You don't make me spend my time around spiders."

"You don't like spiders?" I tried to ignore Vilkas' large, heavy hand applying pressure on my shoulder to slow the bleeding again.

"Hate 'em. Always have."

"You should have told me that at the cairn."

"Nah. You didn't need to know then. But it's okay for you to know now."

The room went quiet as Vilkas finished wrapping me up. I was relieved when he pulled away and I was able to haul my shirt back over my head. The action tweaked the wound, but I managed.

"Last step," Vilkas said, holding out a potion bottle.

"There's no way that's Pact-friendly."

"You didn't make it. And your shoulder needs it to heal faster."

I took the bottle and said a quick prayer to Y'ffre as an apology before tipping it back and drinking it as fast as possible. When I set the empty bottle on the table, Farkas was there, offering out a bottle of mead. 

"For the pain."

I took it and chugged a decent part of it, too. "Thanks, you two."

"Don't worry about it," Vilkas said.

Vilkas and Farkas exchanged a look, and then Vilkas left the room without another word. 

I sighed in relief and sagged back into the chair. "I just wanted to sit here and drink with you today. That's all."

"You saved a woman who needed it. And Vilkas will pay you tomorrow. You brought honor to the Companions. It was worth it."

"If you say so." I inspected my mead bottle, and then drained the rest of it in several determined, long swallows.

****

The next morning, I staggered upstairs to find breakfast done, and Aela sitting in a chair at the table, inspecting her bow.

"Good morning, sister. I hear you had a successful hunt last night."

I resisted the urge to rub at my bandaged shoulder. "In some ways, yeah."

"Vilkas told me about it. He says you came back surprisingly whole for going into a bandit camp alone."

I grimaced. "He _sent_ me alone."

This made her laugh. "None of the others can sneak, and I was out on another contract. Thank you for doing the work while I wasn't around. I am sorry for your shoulder."

"I'll live. The twins managed to patch me up."

"I apologize for that, too. I would have helped if I were here. Some things are better left between women."

"Yeah." I could think of at least two.

"Still, I am impressed to hear that you sneaked your way into the ruin. Most of the others would have gone in swinging."

I took the compliment, and sat down near her with some cheese. "I'm still not very good at swinging. I work best from a distance."

Aela gave me a long look. "We should get you better suited for up-close combat. Let me talk to Skjor and see what we can do."

I shrugged and had a nonchalant bite of cheese. "I'll never say no to help."

"I'm glad you found us, Braith. Your spirit suits the Companions."

To my surprise, that comment didn't grate the way it would have two weeks ago. But before I could say anything, Aela rose and left. I finished my breakfast alone, idly checking the containers on the table for milk and wondering if my head could handle the noise that blacksmith work would take. I decided to risk it, and went downstairs to collect my things to bring to Eorlund. 

That big warhammer was sitting at the foot of my bed, leaned against the wall and glowing threateningly. I hefted it with a grunt and went to find one of the brothers instead of hauling it up toward the Skyforge.

"Farkas?" I called in the hall.

"Not so loud!" 

I looked into Vilkas' room and found him holding a book and glaring at me from his spot in a chair.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I forgot you can hear better than I can."

He returned his attention to his book, and I turned around and looked into Farkas' room. Nobody was there, and I was not about to haul this hammer up the steps. So that left....

I turned back to Vilkas and ambled into the room. "Need a hammer?"

The look he gave me when I reappeared was annoyed, but he closed his book and rose to take the weapon from me. "Where did you get this?"

"A bandit wanted to kill me with it last night."

"This has a fire enchantment on it, I think." He stepped back and gave it a slow swing, and an arc of flame filled the space between us.

"It's yours if you want it. It's too heavy for me."

He chuckled. "It probably weighs what you do." I bared my teeth at him, but he was still inspecting the weapon. "I could find a use for this."

"Good. Saves me the trouble of hauling it down to the market."

"Thank you." He took the weapon and rested it with several others in a rack on his wall. "I appreciate it."

"You're welcome. I _would_ like the money for last night, though," I added.

"Right. Right," he repeated, patting at his belt, and then moving to a side table. I made a note of it out of habit, though I was pretty sure I wasn't going to steal from a guild full of werewolves. That didn't seem like it would work out in my favor. 

Vilkas located a coin pouch, counted the money out swiftly, and passed it off to me. "There you are."

I looked down at the coins in my hand and had a moment when I remembered that I didn't need to spend this on food, or an inn room, or a bounty, or armor repairs. All my needs were being covered, which meant I could do something besides throw it at necessities. "Thanks," I said, remembering myself.

"Let me know if you want more work once your shoulder is better." He sat down and picked his book up again.

"I will. I’ll let you know when I’m up to it. Later, Vilkas," I said as I walked for the hall.

"Braith."

I paused, flustered, because I was almost positive that was the first time he'd said my name. When I turned around and looked back through the door, he was still looking down at the book. 

"Yeah?"

"Buy potions you'll willingly drink."

"Oh. I will. Thanks."

After fleeing Vilkas' room, I brought the rest of the armor and weapons from last night to Eorlund and wheedled a training session out of him. I managed to make it all slightly better—or at least not worse—before taking it down to be sold at Warmaiden's. I got a better price than I was expecting for all of it, and after that and a stop at the alchemy shop, had to take another moment to reconcile with having money. I knew what things I wanted; I didn't know where to go and get them. At least that was an easy fix. I hopped up the steps to the Drunken Huntsman and let myself in.

"Hello, sister!" Elrindir smiled at me from behind the counter. "My brother is out hunting. What can I do for you?"

"I need to know where I can get clothes and potions."

"There's a vendor in the market who stocks wool clothes, by the produce stand. Belethor at the general store often has them in, as well, though he prefers fancy Breton cloth. For potions, I honestly recommend making them yourself."

"I'm _very_ bad at alchemy."

He drummed his fingers on the table. "My brother is fair enough at it. I'm sure we could work out a sale or trade."

"I'll come back later. Thank you, Elrindir. I'm off to get new clothes."

He waved at me as I ducked out and went to hunt down the produce stand. To the left stood a very grumpy looking Imperial woman, who had several dresses hanging in plain view. They were wool, which probably meant I was where I needed to be. We bartered for a bit. She didn't have any pants in my size, because of _course_ she didn't, but we managed a dress which was only slightly too broad through the shoulders, and two shirts. I handed over some of my earnings, then asked for a needle and thread as well so that I could alter my new clothes to more thoroughly fit my frame.

When I walked back into Jorrvaskr, Skjor rose from the chair he'd been sitting in and walked toward me. I tried not to focus on how my head had to tilt back to meet his eye when he stepped in close and looked down at me.

"Aela and I want to talk to you."

I looked around for the Nordess, but she was nowhere in sight. "Oh, okay."

"Not now. Meet me at the Underforge at dusk."

'Underforge?' I wasn't going to have any trouble finding the place, at least. Nords had no imagination when it came to naming. 

"Sure, I can do that."

I had no idea why the two of them wanted to speak to me in what sounded like a secret cave, but wasn't worried enough about it to be distracted as I passed the rest of my day. A good chunk of my time was spent outside, practicing with my new knives on a battered training dummy, well away from the others and their broadswords. As the sun began to set, most everyone went inside to begin their long dinner, but I sheathed my knives and walked around the side of Jorrvaskr, where the rock wall of the hill met the mead hall. Sure enough, Skjor was there.

He pressed a notch on the wall, and a heavy door rolled aside, much like the one at Dustman's Cairn had. Classic Nordic architecture, maybe?

"Aela is waiting inside." Skjor gestured at me to step through the entryway, and I did. 

The interior of the Underforge _screamed_ "secret ritual room," mainly because of the large stone basin in the middle. Aela stood behind it, hands resting on the lip, and smiled at me. 

"Well met, sister."

"Hey." I took another look around. "What's going on?"

"We bring you here to make you stronger," Skjor said, moving to stand beside Aela. 

"We've heard of your strength from the others. Vilkas, especially, is difficult to impress. The rest of them wish to give up our gift, and so will not offer it to you, but if you would join our pack, we would give you the rush of the hunt."

"You're offering to make me a werewolf?" My heart began pounding in my chest.

"Yes." Aela drew a knife. "You will need to take my blood. It will make you turn. After the first change, you will be able to control the shift. We created this place to be a safe space to weather the transformation."

Drinking her blood wasn't really going to be an issue for me. I generally liked the taste. So I grinned at them both, and ignored my ever-increasing heartbeat. "I'm in."

Aela slashed her inner arm with the knife, and let the blood begin to trickle into the basin. "Come."

I put my hand into the steady drip-drip-drip of the blood, and then brought it to my mouth. After I licked, then swallowed, I felt everything begin to burn. I doubled-over, groaning in pain, and clenched my teeth while my blood grew hot and my joints began to ache. 

I knew what to expect from watching Farkas change, but I hadn't been prepared for how it would _feel_. It seemed like fire was licking over my skin, and then magicka flickered off me in a wave, which made my clothing fall through me to land in a pile on the floor. By the time it had hit the ground, I was stretching, growing, wanting to scream, but completely unable to unclench my jaw to let myself actually do it.

My mind broke for a moment. When I was myself again, I heard a loud howling, and realized that I wasn’t myself at all. I looked down at my hands and found heavy claws tipping my fingers. Running my tongue along my teeth revealed sharp edges, which the heat in my blood insisted meant I needed to tear into flesh. 

I wanted to run. I wanted to feel the wind against my fur. I wanted to taste blood from the prey I brought down with my own teeth and claws. I fell onto all fours and moved for the door.

"No, Braith." 

The white-haired human stood between me and freedom. I growled and snapped at him, but he stood firm. I could both hear and smell the other one walking up behind me.

I rose onto my hind legs and snarled up at him, but he only snarled back. 

"Stay here, sister. You can go out later."

No. No, I would run _now._ I shouldered the old one aside and slammed into the wall, claws scrabbling at it to find the exit. By chance, one of my hands caught a pull chain, and the door began to roll open. I heard cursing behind me, but had already wedged myself into the gap. The second the door had opened wide enough for me to wiggle free, I was off at a run, tearing down toward the Market District and on to the gates. I could hear two pairs of running feet behind me, but I was faster.

A woman caught sight of me and I briefly paused, stunned that I could smell and hear her fear. Her heart was beating faster than mine, and I could hear it underneath her panicked shrieks. Fear smelled sharp and sour and sweaty, and it made me want to swipe at her, but the call of the plains was stronger. I vaulted into a run again, clearing the steps into the Market District in a single jump. A guard saw me and drew his bow, but I kept running. The screams of the few townspeople still outside were like a song, but _they_ were not what I wanted to hunt.

I cleared the gates and was over the wall keeping the town from the plain. Another series of faint curses sounded from my pursuers as I landed and broke into a full run, but the fresh smell of the air was far more interesting, especially when I scented food. I saw the elk on the other side of a ridge, and instead of creeping up on it like I might have done usually, I dug deeper into the dirt beneath my claws to propel myself at it faster.

It didn't know what hit it, and when its blood spilled from its neck and into my waiting jaws, I whined. The _heat._ The feeling of victory! I tore into the elk as it lay dying, ripping away strips of flesh and wolfing them down while they were still warm and bloody. I tossed my head back and howled, cocking my head and listening instinctively for a reply.

There was one, back toward the city. I left the remains of my elk and was after the source of the sound like an arrow-shot. When I howled again, there were two replies, and they were closer than they had been. I met two more wolves like me a few minutes later, and we took off south, and east, from the city, howling and yipping at the wonder of our freedom all the while.

****

I woke, naked and shivering, in the woods. Aela was sitting nearby, armored, and so far more comfortable in the chill. I licked my lips and teeth and tasted blood. My hands were covered in it, and it was caked deep beneath my nails. But I felt better than I had in recent memory. After a moment, I realized one of the reasons for that: the arrow wound at my shoulder had healed. I ran my fingers where the injury had been, and didn't so much as feel a scar.

"You're awake." Aela looked over at me and smiled. "We had quite the night last night." She indicated a small pile nearby. "Skjor collected our things while you slept. You gave us more trouble than Farkas did at his first turning."

I thought about the time I'd seen him as a beast, and had a hard time believing that. "He has to be much bigger than I am, even if I am a werewolf."

"You are a small wolf, sister, but you are fast. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. We had intended to keep you in the Underforge for the duration of your first change, but you had other ideas."

"I wanted to run."

"I am thankful for that. The townspeople will be shaken, but unharmed. They are not always so lucky."

I looked over at her, but she didn’t elaborate. I took the chance to walk to my clothes and began to dress, then to put my armor on. "I guess I'll have to be careful about ending a change near where I started."

"If you don't, you're in for a cold walk and strange questions."

"Where is One-E— Skjor?"

"That is something I wanted to speak with you about. I heard from Farkas that you've met the Silver Hand."

"In a way, yes."

"Now that you have beast blood, they will hunt you as they do us. The Harbinger and the twins wish to give up the gift, and so have no reason to do more than defend themselves. But I say we bring the fight to them, and stop them before they can hurt us."

"I don't mind going on the offensive."

"Good, because we are near one of their hideouts. Skjor went on ahead to start clearing the way. You and I should assist."

I settled my knives and ran my thumb along the curve of my bow. "Sure thing."

I followed Aela to our destination a bit distractedly; everything smelled _more_ , and sounded louder. I could hear noises around me more clearly, but could no longer tell how far away anything was. And the scents were new, too. Elk, I recognized, and my mer mind was convinced they were all around us, even though there were no other signs to prove it right. I kept stopping and sniffing, turning in place and trying to reconcile what I was sensing with what I knew.

After what must have been the fifth time, Aela laughed at me. "It will get easier as you grow used to the blood." 

“Everything seems closer than it is," I muttered. I was going to have to spend a _lot_ of time getting used to my new senses. That realization filled me with a strange sort of exhilaration; it had been a long time since I'd had anything to look forward to. 

The feeling faded fast when we found the Silver Hand. All around the entrance to their base were the heads of werewolves on pikes. My nose was filled with the scents of blood, decay, and familiarity, because these poor beasts were like me. Or, I was like them, now. I spent a moment, standing, staring, and wondering what I had gotten myself into. I already had enemies enough: was this new power worth the risks?

Well. I'd just have to wipe them out. First the Silver Hand, and then Tullius. I would find a way to that man, somehow. No one sent my head to the chopping block and got away with it. I stared again at one of the poor, dead werewolves, and realized that the Silver Hand were no different than the Imperial army, in some ways.

"Are you ready, sister?" Aela had her hand on the ruin's wooden door.

"Can't we just change and rip them apart?"

"I don't recommend changing more than once a day. It takes a lot out of you, and can leave you too weak to fight."

I palmed my bow, dropping into a crouch, and nodded, trusting that she would be able to sense any enemies on the other side. With my untrained senses, all I could smell was rot and wood.

The ruin smelled even more heavily of must than I was prepared for, because it was an enclosed space. All around us, parts of werewolves were in various stages of decay. Some were spiked onto spears, and others were hanging from chains. I knew nothing about these dead wolves, of how they had used their abilities for good or for ill, but I had enough of a heart left in me to understand that nothing deserved to die the way these creatures had. 

Felling our enemies was easy, and not just because I could hear and smell them better, even under the echoes and the stench. Not as well as Aela, who had fallen back to allow me to practice my new abilities, but well enough to kill the worst of them before they saw us coming. A faint burning in my blood demanded that I change and rip through them all, but I heeded Aela's warning and didn't try. I wasn't even sure how to go about it, in all honesty, and this didn’t seem like the place to practice.

We saw and heard no signs of Skjor, but Aela insisted that she could smell him in the ruin. Some of the blood on the floors was fresh, and didn't smell of wolf: he was in here with us, somewhere, and had done his part to thin the ranks. I felt uneasy, but Aela was sure that he could hold his own.

It didn't take long for us to reach a section of the ruin that was full of live werewolves. Their snapping and snarling proved to be excellent cover for our progress, though I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears from the noise. I also wanted to let them out, especially because I thought they might fight with us, but Aela stopped me. She said that the Silver Hand had likely driven them mad with pain, and that they would attack anyone who came near them. I saw the cuts, and I smelled the blood, but I still ached for them.

"Why aren't they turning back?"

Her tone was dismissive. "Some find that they prefer the beast." 

I stopped and stared at one of the wolves as we passed, and she met my eyes and snarled. I shivered when I saw the emptiness there. _This_ was what Bosmeri feared becoming. Changing shape and keeping the mind was one thing, but losing oneself forever to a shift? Had I known this was a possible end twelve hours ago, I might not have taken Aela's blood so eagerly.

The urge to get myself as far from these feral wolves as I could was strong, but Aela put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from creeping further into the building. "I do need to tell you, sister, about the leader of this portion of the Hand."

I looked at her over my shoulder. "Yeah?"

"His name is Krev the Skinner."

"That's... evocative."

"Hang back when we find him. I will try to keep his attention on me so that you can put your arrows to good use."

I wasn't going to complain, though I was wondering which of us technically had better armor. Sure, she had actual metal covering her, but I was showing _far_ less skin. We were probably about even in regards to protection, I thought as I watched her and her bare thighs sneak to the right of the door ahead of us. It would be nice to be able to have that much skin exposed and _not_ be freezing. I didn't often feel like showing myself off, but Skyrim's weather had effectively taken the option away from me entirely. 

Then again, who would I be baring skin for, this far _Nord_? I couldn't remember the last human I'd found attractive, if there had ever been one. 

My mind stopped whirling and focused again when Skjor's smell grew stronger. We were near the back of the ruin, but there was still no sign of him. It took my newly heightened senses a moment to understand what they were picking up on, but I eventually realized that though Aela outwardly looked fine, she was incredibly agitated. This worried me, so I sped us up a bit. What if this Krev had captured him and was doing to him what he'd done to the other werewolves we'd come across?

The two of us moved stealthily enough to sneak up on The Skinner while he was at his work scraping clean a werewolf hide. Skjor's smell was incredibly strong, though the stench of all the blood in the room was stronger. Still, as I drew my bow and aimed at Krev, I spied something just behind him that made my stomach sink: Skjor, prone on his side, in a pool of blood.

Aela saw him as I did, and ruined the element of surprise with a pained shriek. I caught Krev in the side as he spun, but I could already tell that his armor had borne the brunt of the hit. My Shield-Sister surged forward as she had promised, and I fell back, lining up another shot. The time in between my shots was long, because Aela had put herself squarely between me and my target. Thankfully, once the third arrow nearly hit her as it sped past toward Krev, she turned them, leaving his back exposed. He took an arrow to the small of the back and stumbled, and then Aela severed his head from his body. The scent of fresh blood filled the room, and I felt my nostrils flare in response.

She pulled Krev's head clear, letting the lingering bits of skin tear away from his neck, and then sent his face down onto a nearby pike, impaling it just like he and his had done to the werewolf corpses all around us. That done, she fell to her knees beside Skjor. 

I almost asked if he was dead before I realized that I could only hear two heartbeats. 

"How?" she asked his corpse, turning him onto his back and wiping blood from his face. "You were our strongest."

I turned away and gave her a moment. I’d never _smelled_ grief before, and I really didn’t like it. Seeing it always brought on emotions like pity or guilt, sure, but smelling it almost made me feel it myself. I'd barely even known the man, and I was bothered by the idea that my emotions could be so easily manipulated just because my senses were stronger. Maybe I should have done more digging into what being a werewolf would be like before I drank her blood. But no, I just dove in, as always. And now I appeared to be stuck with smell-based empathy.

But at the same time... I knew exactly what she was feeling. And I might not like the sense of intimacy that brought, but I couldn't help it. So while she wailed behind me, I began looking for something we could use to transport his body back. I found it in a chest at the foot of Krev's bed: a cured werewolf pelt, yes, but the only thing large and strong enough within easy reach. I gathered it up and brought it toward my Companions, living and dead.

"Aela. We need to get him home." I laid the pelt out beside Skjor. "I'll help you bring him."

Her eyes met mine, and their look made me think of the werewolves we had left behind in the hall.

"We will kill them all for this," she said.

Revenge I could do. When I nodded, she motioned me toward Skjor's feet, and we began to shift him onto the pelt. I quickly learned that the beast blood made me stronger no matter my form, though I found myself wishing I hadn’t learned that by lifting the body of one of the people who had given me the power in the first place. I wanted to take his armor off for convenience's sake, but Aela refused to leave anything of the Companions in this place. I quietly resigned myself to the extra weight, and moved beside her to begin to drag him back. We only stopped in the hall with the other, feral werewolves; I put an arrow in each of them before we left.

The trip toward the road leading to Whiterun was long, and by the time we got there I took one look at how far we still had to go and told Aela to stay put with Skjor. It would be much easier if I ran back to the city and hired a cart to bring him the rest of the way. Both of us were exhausted already from navigating rocks and fallen trees with our depressing cargo. 

Aela sank to the ground beside Skjor without a word when I told her the plan. I dug into the reserves of my energy and jogged to town, trying all the while to ignore old memories this was stirring up. I'd had to mourn someone important around strangers before, and it made me awkwardly aware of just how new I was to Jorrvaskr. I hadn't wanted anyone near me when I was in Aela's place, and here I was, right there in her home. At least I'd be able to tell if they needed space, with my new nose. That was something, right? 

I explained what had happened to the cart driver, and the instant I mentioned the Companions, he refused pay. I hopped up beside him and rode along to guide him back to Aela. It took all three of us to lift Skjor into the cart, but gravity helped get him down again once we were at the gates, so my Shield-Sister and I carried on alone. 

As we resumed dragging him up to Whiterun’s main gate to get him the rest of the way home, a procession ended up forming behind us. Everyone in town recognized Skjor, which meant that when we arrived at Jorrvaskr there was a small crowd to witness Vilkas' reaction as he saw us on the steps. I fell back as he strode forward, jaw clenched, and helped Aela lift Skjor to be carried inside. New smells from him, which triggered more emotions in me: rage, and the same grief as before. I nearly staggered back from the force of his feeling.

"Go find my brother," he ordered me as they crested the steps. "We need everyone home. He's at the meadery."

...That man and his _mead_. "Okay. I'll hurry."

My legs protested, but I broke back into a jog. I'd pushed myself harder than this in the past, and was well aware already that I was more capable after the addition of the beast blood than I had been during my flight from Cyrodiil.

It was growing dark by the time I reached the little building near the river that was responsible for most of the liquor in Jorrvaskr. Farkas was seated inside at the bar, nursing a tankard. He smiled when he saw me. Then his eyes went wide, and he sniffed loudly.

"Braith, you're—" he cut himself off and glanced around him. The room, while not empty, still had people drinking, and more than one of them were openly watching us.

"Yeah." I stepped in close to speak with him privately. I had just opened my mouth when I caught his scent, and instead of speaking, I had to take a moment. I knew how Farkas smelled after living with him, but something about the beast blood had made it shift. The sweat was there, and the underlying muskiness that was his natural scent. It usually made my lip curl slightly, because I wasn't used to males smelling so strongly, but now... Y'ffre's teeth, he smelled _good_.

Nope! Not good. Not now.

The room grew brighter as my pupils dilated slightly, but I forced myself to stay on-task.

"Farkas?" I have some bad news. Aela, Skjor, and I went to a Silver Hand encampment today, because...." I trailed off, then tapped my nose. When he nodded, I continued, though I reached out to rest a hand on his bicep without quite realizing what I was doing. "Skjor was killed. We've just brought him back."

He stared down at me uncomprehendingly for a long moment. When I placed my other hand on his other arm—gods, he was _warm_ —he finally managed, after a few false starts, to say, "He was the one I looked up to. I need to find my brother."

"Vilkas is the one who sent me to get you. Everyone else is back."

"Okay. I. Okay." Mead forgotten, he walked for the door without another word.

...Well, now I knew how _that_ felt, at least. What a day for personal growth.

The bartender looked up from his cleaning and locked eyes with me. "He didn't pay his tab."

"I've got it. Pour another for me?" I settled into the chair Farkas had just left, and allowed myself to just _be_ with my newly heightened senses for the first time. I let the mead soothe my soreness and rested with my eyes closed, tracking people around the room by sound and smell. It was easier to go by ear than it was by nose: my sense of smell had improved a _lot_ more than my hearing had, though it was still sharp enough to faintly hear every single heartbeat in the room. Oddly, the sound was soothing.

I'd finished my tankard and was debating whether a second one would make the walk to town too difficult when I heard the door open. I let my eyes verify what my nose already knew: Farkas was back.

"What's up?"

He walked over and frowned down at me. "Aela and Vilkas say we should have come back together."

"I was planning on giving you all some space." 

"Skjor liked you. You're a Companion. We need to be together to honor him properly."

A test sniff gave my new senses surprising information: I didn't feel like he was just saying that. He appeared to genuinely want me back with them. I looked at his face, and found that his expression confirmed that. So, I swallowed down my misgivings and rose to my feet. 

"I don't... know anything about Nordic funeral traditions. I don't want to do something rude accidentally."

"We drink. We tell tales of the dead to honor them. And then we'll cremate him on the Skyforge. Eorlund is working on the pyre now." Farkas moved to the door and opened it, then stood aside to let me through first.

"Oh. Thank you," I murmured. Alcohol would make this easier, so at least it was part of the plan. "And you're sure it's okay for me to...?"

"You're a Companion," he said again, as though that answered everything. And... from the way he smelled, it almost did. 

I took a deep breath and nodded to myself. This was okay. Being friendly didn't mean I was getting tied down, and it seemed like the beast blood would at least give me a sense of if I was in the way. So when Farkas started walking toward Whiterun, I fell into step beside him.

I asked awkward questions on the way back, because I was more comfortable being an ignorant Bosmer around Farkas than I was around any of the others. I learned that Skjor would lie out for a day or so, after he was washed and dressed, so that the others might say their goodbyes. During all of this, eating and drinking and sharing stories would be expected. Only then would Skjor be brought to the pyre on the Skyforge to be sent to... wherever he was going.

"Kodlak says we don't go to Sovngarde because of the beast blood."

"What's Sovngarde?"

"Nords go there when they die. It's supposedly where Ysmir is, and we all drink and fight forever."

I chuckled, then chuckled harder when the sound didn't seem to offend him. "That sounds like a good place to go."

"Elves can't go there."

"That's okay. I have my own afterlife."

"Yeah, but maybe not the one you want. Kodlak says werewolves go to Hircine's Hunting Grounds. It's why he wants to be cured."

"I can think of worse things than an eternity of hunting."

Farkas shrugged. "Kodlak wants to be cured. So does Vilkas. I don't much mind either way."

"But you're so strong as a werewolf." My heart started beating harder as I said that, and I cursed myself. Maybe he wouldn't— no, of course he'd hear it. Idiot.

"I'm strong either way. I'll sleep better if I'm cured, and that will be nice."

"I've always been a light sleeper, anyway."

He looked down at me and licked his lips, but didn't say anything. We walked the rest of the way to Whiterun in silence, but it wasn't as awkward as it could have been, because in the back of my mind I could hear the constant and slow beat of his heart reassuring me that he was okay with me being there.

The next day was a blur, largely due to the sheer amount of mead the others were drinking. I felt obligated to at least try to keep pace, and as a result spent more time than I would have liked swaying and clinging to the tables in the main hall. But that seemed to be the right thing to do, because the others laughed and cheered me on in between sharing stories of their favorite moments with Skjor. I had none of my own to add, especially not because I was now well aware of just how many people in the mead hall _weren't_ werewolves, and I wasn't about to wade into that without knowing who knew and who didn't. Several of the younger Companions talked about how they looked forward to seeing him again in Sovngarde, which suggested not everyone was in the know.

Aela got the drunkest of them all—though Vilkas was a close second—and the two of us ended the night stumbling down the stairs together. She was using me to stay stable, though the size difference made that an uneasy situation at best. I managed to get her to her room and stop her from falling over on the bed before I helped her with her armor. And to think I’d tried so hard to get a closer look at it so many times before.

"We're going to avenge him," she told me as I rummaged in a drawer to get her a proper shirt to sleep in.

"Just tell me what you need me to do," I said.

"We'll wipe them all out, and then nobody will ever be in danger again."

I hopped up and pulled a shirt down over her head, and then had her lie down. "Get some sleep."

She curled over on the bed and started to cry. Again, my senses were flooded by her grief. It made me feel like I needed to do something to help, but this time there wasn't anything she needed other than sleep. All I could do was sit beside her and cover her with as many blankets as I could find until she finally went under. When I went to my own bed afterward, I lay awake and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

We all woke late the next morning and stumbled to a meal somewhere between breakfast and lunch, which I noticed had extra helpings of bacon, and other greasy meats. My hungover Companions ate like Bosmeri, and then Kodlak rose and called us to the Skyforge for the funeral. I tried to duck away again out of instinct, but Farkas caught my shoulder and pulled me with him until I stopped balking.

The service itself was short, and to the point, and I forced myself to ignore my horror at the sight of so much burning wood for the sake of the grieving people around me. The smell made me ill, but a funeral was the last place I was going to have a Green Pact freakout at. So, I held my breath and stood quietly beside the rest of them as Skjor began to burn. The wood smoke dampened the pervading smell of sadness that still clung to them all, but I didn't really think that was an improvement.

Kodlak and Eorlund stayed with him to make sure that the cremation went properly, but once the prayers were done, the others filed away to nurse their hangovers. I kept catching myself sniffing out of paranoia, just to make sure I still wasn't making any of them uncomfortable, but my nose always told me that they were sad, but not upset by my presence. I decided to make myself inconspicuous, but remain close by, and began browsing the bookshelves for something to read. I found one on the basics of smithing, spread a spare bear pelt on a bench in the main room to keep myself off the wood, and settled in to read it.

It took most of the day to get through it, but nobody disturbed me. I could still smell the grief in the air, and didn't take the lack of communication personally: I was used to being alone in a crowd, and if ever there were a time to fall back on that skill, well. I'd found it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who has read my stuff before knows I have issues with the way AO3 does italics, but I SWEAR I am trying.


	3. I'm Looking for a Partner, Someone Who Gets Things Fixed, Ask Yourself This Question, Do You Want to be Rich?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Braith gets sent to Riften, and meets more Nords than she's mentally prepared to handle.

After Skjor's funeral, things started to settle down a bit in Jorrvaskr. Aela spent most of her time away, hunting down the locations of the rest of the Silver Hand. When she found a hideout nearby, she sent me to "take care of it" while she continued her search. Part of me wanted to point out the idiocy of sending me alone when that was how Skjor had died, but I was arrogant enough to believe that I would succeed where he had failed: I was younger; I could sneak; and, I fought best from a distance. 

Unsurprisingly, I survived, and made it back to Jorrvaskr with no injuries. The silver swords I sold in town for a decent chunk of coin, and then I just relaxed and waited for a contract. It gave me the chance to continue getting to know my other Companions, which was a mixed success. A few of the younger ones—and even Athis, the Dunmer—were clearly upset that I'd moved up the ranks so quickly, but when I saw them floundering in the training yard, I wondered why they didn't understand their lack of promotion. 

Kodlak sought me out several times that week, I think to verify both that I was a werewolf, and to be sure that I knew the consequences of the choice. He was kind, and respectful, and didn't take it personally that I liked my new skills, even though he wanted to be rid of them. I was fast learning that the beast and I didn't always see eye-to-eye, which made it easier to understand where he and the twins were coming from, but... the _hunting_.

The Nords and I were even learning to better understand one another. Wool bandages showed up without fanfare among the healing supplies, which I suspected Vilkas for, and Farkas had enough questions about Valenwood and the Green Pact to make me lose track of time more than once during a conversation. 

Well. The mead probably helped.

Still, there were rough spots. Seven days after Skjor's funeral, I wandered up from bed to the breakfast table, yawning and pushing my hair out of my face.

"Hey, is there any milk?" I asked as I flopped into a chair. "I'm sick of water and mead."

Vilkas and a few other Companions started laughing, which made me bristle immediately.

"You're a literal milk-drinker," my less favorite twin chuckled when he caught my eye. 

"...What?"

My confusion caused another ripple of laughter, but Farkas took pity on me. "Nords call the weak 'milk-drinkers,' because they still need tended to by their mothers."

I rolled my eyes. "It's just milk. It's not going to drain your strength and honor if you have a sip." I rose and walked for the kitchen area. "You people bake, so there has to be some somewhere."

I did find my milk, but being laughed at for wanting it made me annoyed enough to decide to go hunting even though I had no real need to. I could always sell my kill at the Drunken Huntsman, but I would have to explain the animal bites. The Companions always gladly ate what was brought in, but on days when nobody provided, their cook went to the market. Nobody here was hunting to survive. 

Still, it was practice. My Imperial bow was slowly becoming an extension of myself, much like my old bow had been before I was captured by the Imperials and it was taken from me. I'd be a better fighter for it.

In any case, I enjoyed hunting. Being out in nature, away from the sounds of the city, was relaxing. And with my heightened senses, I was much better at tracking prey than I had been previously. Of course, this meant I ended my hunts faster, but I was quickly learning that I felt calmer just after a change. It soothed the beast—which I found had increased my baseline irritability—and left me relaxed and ready to continue trying to get to know those whom my blood insisted were my packmates. So I moved far enough out that I would be unlikely to run into any city guard, shifted, and sniffed out my quarry. 

I found a buck by the water and brought him down with a single swipe of my claws. I was getting better at being a werewolf, too. I let my instinct take over and gutted my kill, feasting on the innards, before shifting back, cleaning up in a spring, and dragging my slightly tattered prize with me back toward Whiterun.

Vilkas cornered me when I was almost completely back to Jorrvaskr. The mangled deer was hefted across my shoulder, bleeding. I had to adjust it several times when I stopped to talk to him, but he made no move to help me with it.

"There you are. I have a job for you."

I shifted the deer and grimaced up at him. "Yeah?"

"Some idiot's got a bear in their house in Riften. I figured you should go, since Wood Elves are good with animals."

My grimace deepened. "I don't know where Riften is."

Vilkas scoffed and rubbed at his face. "So take a cart."

I sniffed, and detected the faint wave of annoyance that always rolled off of him when I was near. In response, I grinned at him. "It's nice to know you think so highly of me, sending me out into such danger."

"Not every contract brings honor. Some are only good for gold. Are you going, or not?"

I sighed and adjusted the deer again. This time, he caught the motion and reached down to take it from me. I kept my eyebrows from raising in surprise, but was well aware that he could probably tell anyway. 

"Sure. I'll get packed. Enjoy the venison dinner, I guess." 

"Be careful, Braith. Riften is full of thieves."

...Was it, now? I walked up the stairs, passing him and heading into the mead hall. He followed after with the buck, but didn't say anything else. I was relieved by this, because I'd been trying to keep my interactions with him and his brother to a minimum over the past few days. My blood kept telling me that they were like me, even though my mind knew better, and it was too confusing for me to deal with. 

Yeah, maybe a trip to another city would be a great idea. In all honesty, I'd be more likely to get along with a bunch of thieves. They were my usual social circle, or at least they had been before I had to leave Valenwood. I went downstairs to my bed and started going through my things, making sure I had everything I'd need: the hemmed dress, which fit me fine now, my armor, my weapons, and some money. I took more than I thought I'd need, because hopefully, I'd be able to stay more than a day. Just to think, and sort out my beast blood.

And maybe do a little thieving myself. It'd been a bit. 

I was on my way to the stairs up, distractedly shouldering my pack, when I ran face-first into a broad chest. My nose told me it was Farkas before I looked up and met his eyes, and I mentally prepared myself for my body to misbehave. 

"Sorry!"

He steadied me with massive hands to my shoulders, then chuckled and looked down without bothering to take a step back. "How'd you know I was looking for you?"

"Lucky guess. What's up?"

"Aela and I have been talking. Well, all of us have. We want you to have Skjor's room."

I backed up a step. "...Why?"

"Because you shouldn't be sleeping in with the whelps."

"I really don't mind it. I'm honestly used to sleeping outside. I'm not picky."

"Well, we won't be giving it to anyone who ranks lower than you do, so if you don't take it, it will sit empty."

I lowered my voice. "But it will smell like Skjor."

He nodded. "For a while, yeah. I got my room from a Companion who fell in battle, back when I was still a pup. You make it yours, and time does the rest."

"...I don't have enough things to need a room to put them in."

Farkas went quiet for a moment, which let me hear his heartbeat. It was slightly elevated, which made me study his face. No answers showed themselves in his expression.

"Maybe you should start making this a home," he said at last, stepping close to me again. "Take the room, and find things to put in it."

"But...." I didn't finish the sentence aloud. _But that would mean I want to stay here_. Which was not a thought I could safely entertain. I hadn't had a stable place to stay in so long. I didn't want to open myself up to the idea, only to be chased away from it later. 

I looked up at Farkas, who was frowning at me. "I thought you'd like the privacy. If it's the wood, we could cover the walls with furs and get you furniture that doesn't bother you."

...Y'ffre's teeth, that might have been the sweetest thing anyone had said to me in years. And the thought of a space where I could attempt to keep the Pact did have appeal... an appeal strong enough to make me completely ignore my fear of staying in one place. I caught myself smiling, and _also_ caught the slight increase in his heart rate after I did. I had a brief vision of leaning against his broad, muscular chest and closing my eyes to relax and enjoy his warmth. We met eyes, and he licked his lips.

Gods. Yeah. I needed to go.

"Thanks, Farkas. That's actually a really good idea."

He beamed down at me. "We'll empty the room and move your crate in there while you're gone."

I hopped around him and began taking the steps. "Wish me luck with the bear, big guy."

I heard him snort as he walked away. "I've seen you fight. You don't need it."

That comment made my own heart rate increase, so I excused myself from Jorrvaskr as soon as possible and walked to the city outskirts to rent a cart. That accomplished, I flopped in the back and settled in to watch the scenery as we plodded toward our destination. I saw more mammoths, more giants—which I'd gotten used to while hunting on the plains—and more hot springs. Many more hot springs. The land became barren, and I wondered how anything survived in it.

Eventually, the cart crossed the river, and we passed into a young forest. The trees were slim, but plentiful, and my nose told me that there were all sorts of creatures living among them. I recognized bear, and deer, and elk, but there was a more acrid scent on the air, as well. I was not looking forward to discovering its source.

The cart driver let me off at the stables in front of an unassuming gate, which was closed. This gave me pause, because Whiterun's only closed at night. During the day, anyone could come in or out. I eyed the two guards flanking my way in, and decided immediately that I didn't like how they were eyeing me back. 

"Hey," I said as I ambled toward them, letting my legs stretch out from the ride. "I'm here for work."

"There's a seventy-five gold fee for new visitors," the guard on the right replied. 

Absolute bureaucratic bullshit... wait, was he _grinning_? No gate guard who had to part travelers from their money every day would be smiling. And he'd smell bored. This man's scent had a hint of what I was coming to recognize as adrenaline. I scowled up at him and kept my hand from twitching to a knife.

"That's obviously bogus. I'm not paying."

The man hissed at me to be quiet, then looked me over. He appeared to decide that I wasn't worth the effort, because he eventually said, "Fine. Welcome to Riften, elf."

"Learn to pick your marks," I murmured to him as I walked through the opening gates. The wood groaned loudly as the guards pulled them.

When I stepped through, an absolutely unforgivable stench immediately accosted me. I snorted and clamped a hand over the lower half of my face, trying to orient on where its source was. I was so distracted by my careful sniffing that I didn't notice a large, dark Nord approaching until he was nearly on top of me.

"I don't know you."

I sniffed at him experimentally. Nope, he wasn't the source. He had his own ripe aroma. "That happens with strangers."

"You in Riften looking for trouble?"

"No," I lied. "I'm looking for a bear. I'm a Companion."

I'd gotten so used to this giving me a free pass in Whiterun that I was surprised when his face got even less friendly.

"Wrong answer."

Well, it looked like I'd found my first thief. Or second, if the idiot at the gate counted. Neither of them were what I'd consider subtle, which did not get my hopes up about this city.

"Look, your posturing is very impressive, but if you could just point me toward the nearest inn, I'd really appreciate it."

He scoffed and turned to walk away. "I'll be watching you."

"Thanks for the help!"

I sighed and looked around, sighting what looked like a market up the road. If this were anything like a normal city, there was bound to be an inn nearby. This time, I ignored the smell—which my nose was growing deadened to, anyway—and kept my eyes out for large Nords. To my dismay, there was another one just up the path, clad in heavy armor and watching me with open interest. Her hair was blonde, and half of her face was painted. 

Despite the fact that we both seemed to favor face markings, she spent a few moments staring at mine in open apprehension before speaking.

"You're a stranger here too, eh?"

"Sure am!"

I tried to keep walking, but Vilkas had taught me it was difficult to navigate around a Nord who wanted to be in the way. She kept talking, and I gave up and stopped to half-listen. I was about to just cut in and ask her if she knew anyone who had a bear in their house when I realized she'd said the words "thieves' guild."

"There's a thieves' guild here?"

The Nordess nodded emphatically. "Yes. This entire city is corrupt. That is why I'm still here." She pointed to a man whose clothes made him seem like a good mark. "It's the least I can do to repay Aerin, who saved my life."

I waved at the man. "Hi, Aerin." Then, I looked up at the Nordess. "Do you know anyone actually in the guild? Just so I know who to keep away from."

"Anyone in Riften is more likely to be a member than not. Especially the Black-Briars." The woman launched into another tirade, but this time it was information that I was interested in, so I listened carefully. I had definitely come to the right place, it seemed. Once she trailed off again, I thanked her for her time, and then asked for directions to the inn. This time, I got a straight answer. Apparently, a place called the Bee and Barb was right off the main market square. 

I had the inn in sight and was nearly there when yet another massive Nord stepped in front of me. This one was red-headed; now all I needed was a grey one, and I'd have met a full set. He was in nice clothes, but one of his cheeks was scarred, there was dirt on his face and hands, and he had the intimidating broadness of a man used to physical work for a living. 

I glowered up at him by way of greeting, and he responded by raising an eyebrow, utterly ignoring my face-print, and directly meeting my eyes with a slight smile. 

...Gods, his eyes were almost mer-green. The mean thing I’d planned to say died in my throat as we stared at one another, and I heard my breath catch slightly. The Nord's smile widened, and I internally berated myself for letting him eyebrow his way into an immediate upper hand.

"You've never done an honest day's work for all that coin you're carrying, eh lass?"

I took another breath. I'd never heard an accent like his before. It was nice to listen to, especially when paired with such a pleasant voice. "Actually," I managed after a moment, "all this 'coin' is legit. I'm here for work."

His other eyebrow went and met its partner. "Are you now? Forgive my surprise. Since the war, few people come to Riften looking for work."

I shrugged. "Any port in a storm."

"Now that I understand. May I ask what you're here to do?"

"Yeah. Heard of anyone with a bear in their house?"

He chuckled. "I'm afraid not. But," he said as he pointed beside us to the inn door. "Through there is the city's gossip center. You're likely to find what you need inside."

"That's where I was headed before you cut me off." This time, I was the one raising an eyebrow.

"Ah, I was looking for someone to do a little job with. But you're making it sound like I misread my mark, lass."

"Do you do that often?"

His eyes met mine again, and the slight smile came back. "Never. So once you've handled that bear, feel free to come find me at my stall in the market, and we can talk business."

My nose chose that moment to inform me that the man in front of me smelled _amazing_ , and I nearly gritted my teeth to ignore a faint heat that stirred in the pit of my stomach. In my mind, I briefly envisioned burying my face in the crook of his neck and breathing deeply. 

Fuck. I didn't even know his _name_. Why was the beast so determined to tell me that human men were attractive? 

"...I'll think about it."

"All I can ask for. Good luck with the local wildlife, lass."

He turned and walked away into the market, which was a blessing, because if I had been the one who'd needed to walk away, I wouldn't have been able to. That 'lass' had nestled down in my hip bones and was settling in to stay. 

Gods. I needed a drink. 

I pushed through the inn door into its main room and looked around for an innkeeper. To my surprise, I found an Argonian behind the counter. I hadn't seen a single one of her kind in Whiterun, and had just assumed it was too cold here for them, either literally or socially. But she smiled when she saw me, so I approached and asked for a mead. As an afterthought, I inquired after anyone who had been complaining about a bear getting into their house. 

She handed over the mead, and I took a large swallow as she tilted her head upward in thought. "Yes. There's a man who has been here drinking since yesterday because he says there's a bear in his house." She pointed to a tired- and drunk-looking Dunmer sitting at a corner table. "He lives on the outskirts of town."

"Thanks," I said, and tossed her some money before walking over to my inebriated client. 

I told him who I was, and what I was there for, and he gratefully gave me a key and directions to his house. I finished off my mead and returned the flagon to the counter before patting at my things to make sure I had everything. I wasn't expecting to need to fight this bear, but if I did, I wanted all my weapons with me.

I wove my way through Riften's narrow streets, many of which sounded hollow below my feet. It appeared that a decent portion of the town had literally been built over the top of the lake it was situated against, and the streets were really boardwalks. It was disconcerting, to say the least. If I closed my eyes and ignored the fact that even though the wood was audibly dry and dead, the paths almost sounded like those in my home city. Almost. But then I inhaled, and killed the illusion entirely. At least I now barely smelled the stench that had greeted me when I came in. It was obvious now that its source was the disused canal in the middle of the city. Water could make things reek like nothing else, if they were left in it long enough. Thankfully, my path was leading me away.

The Dunmer had told me he hadn't wanted to leave his doors open in case someone decided to use the bear as an opportunity to rob him. This meant that, by the time I arrived at his house, large angry wildlife had been trapped in his living space for more than a day. I resigned myself to a _very_ upset bear awaiting me inside, and unlocked the door with the key I'd been given.

I could hear heavy pawsteps in one of the side rooms, but it took me a moment to get there, because everything in the house was absolutely trashed. I picked my way around upended furniture and scattered odds and ends as I made my way to the bear.

He rose onto his hind legs when he saw me, and I held out a hand and spoke softly in Bosmeris. _"Hello, friend! I see you're lost. Can I lead you outside?"_ As I spoke, I called on the small spark of power within me that was a gift from Y'ffre. The bear's eyes glowed for a fraction of a second, and then he calmly fell onto all fours and approached me.

" _Good man. This way, please_."

The bear and I picked our way through the destroyed and overturned furniture, making our way steadily for the back door. I kept the fingers of my right hand buried in the fur of his back as we went, quietly enjoying the warmth and the flex of the muscle beneath my hand. He was young, but he was strong, and he had no business being where he was. When I opened the back door to let him loose, he padded off the porch and down into the wilderness, then set off at a lope for the trees.

Well, that was probably the easiest money I'd ever made. I briefly considered checking to see if the Dunmer had any valuables, but concluded that he'd had a bad enough day as it was. Which left me with nothing but time, because the day was getting old, and I didn't much want to ride a cart back to Whiterun in the dark. I figured I should return to the inn, get a room, and then possibly find that redheaded Nord and see what "business" he wanted to conduct. I thought about his accent and caught myself licking my lips like a nervous little girl.

...Maybe not. I'd come here to avoid Nord men, after all. Why run from Farkas and Vilkas, and then throw myself in with a stranger whom the beast liked nearly as much? As odd a thought as it was for me to have, it didn't seem fair to the twins. Farkas especially had been nothing but nice, and the second it had become hard for me to look down on him for being human, I'd bailed. 

But it kept me _safe_ , which had been my primary goal for the past year.

I retraced my steps to get me back to the inn, well aware that if I was getting introspective, it was time for another mead. I kept half an eye out for any interesting stores or people, but this city wasn't thriving, at least not when compared with Whiterun. Shop signs were small and hard to find, and the buildings had been constructed hastily and maintained poorly. As morbid as I found the carved wood of Whiterun, at least those were cared for. Not only was this wood dead, but the city's denizens were living within it as it rotted away like a corpse. 

I did find a general store, which I made note of. It likely did steady business, and so would have a full cash box. If I had time, I might brush up on my lock-picking skills to get at it later. And it was right next to the inn, which would make sneaking back to my room that much easier. 

When I re-entered the Bee and Barb, I found my Dunmer client several drinks farther into his day, so it took a few tries to get him back his key and convince him to go home. 

"You're sure the bear is gone?"

So sure, I told him, more than once. Finally, he rose and staggered for the door. 

"Fair warning," I called as he went, "the bear redecorated!"

This made him practically bolt away. I chuckled, ordered another mead, and settled down to pass the time like a true Companion. There were plenty of people to watch: my new Nord friend had not been joking when he called this place a 'gossip center.' And, as dinnertime approached, I saw several well-dressed Nords come and go. Those were pockets to pick, or houses to rob. Satisfied with my collection of marks, I relaxed my attention and let my mind wander. 

The cleanest Imperial I had ever seen was sitting on a bench nearby, and had been watching me watch the clientele. I was tolerating it because he wasn't leering. Or sneering. When he rose and came toward me, though, I didn't smile.

"Forgive me, friend, but you have the look of an adventurer, and I haven't seen you around before."

"People have been saying that to me a lot today." He was hovering, and it was making my neck ache to look up at him, so I gestured to the other seat at my table. 

He sat down. "I only ask because I'm for hire. For the right price, you get access to both me and my spells."

This made me smile a little. "Do you get a lot of work in Riften?"

"Are you kidding? The Rift is riddled with caves and bandits. And the wealthier merchants are always needing someone to guard shipments in and out."

"If that's the sort of work you're looking for, you'd hate me hiring you. And that's ignoring the fact that I'm pretty self-sufficient."

"I'm sure you're the better shot with a bow, but lightning hits harder than arrows." 

"I'm _very_ determined."

"Fine. Maybe you don't need me for work, but what about company for the evening?" I raised an eyebrow, and he added, "You've been sitting alone for a while. I thought you might want a friendly face to talk to, since you're new in town."

"Sure, but I'm going to shamelessly ply you for information." 

He chuckled and waved a male Argonian over. "Two meads? At least I assume that's mead," he said to me, "since you look like one to keep the Green Pact."

"Thank you. I am." When our server walked off to get our drinks, I tossed money at my table-mate. "I'm not letting a stranger buy me drinks."

"That's probably a wise choice. But to that, I will introduce myself. My name is Marcurio."

"Braith." He eyed me, but didn't say anything, and I pretended not to notice his skepticism. "Or Braith the Bosmer, which I've been getting called in Whitrerun ever since coming to Skyrim."

"You're lucky. These snowbacks have been calling me a lot worse than 'Marcurio the Imperial.'"

'Snowback?' Huh. I liked it. "Don't tell me. I don't think my delicate ears could handle it."

Marcurio snorted and then grinned when that made me laugh. "No offense meant. 'Delicate' is not a word that comes to mind for a woman who runs around with a palm print made of what looks like blood across her face."

"It _is_ very honest about who I am as a person."

"If you were a mercenary, you'd be doing it right. I need something like that to advertise me."

"Your current look screams 'I'm too clean to work!' by the way."

He took a long drink of mead. "Just because I'm good at getting dirty doesn't mean I need to live like that in town."

"Speaking of town. Would you consider yourself a good person to go to for local rumors and gossip?"

"Well, I do spend the majority of my time waiting around in the most popular inn in Riften." He sucked on his teeth. "It would depend on what you wanted to know."

I had a casual sip of my drink. "I heard there's a guild of thieves in town. I'd love to meet one of them."

Marcurio scoffed. "Them? Chances are you already have. They're not a group you want to associate with, though." He leaned in. "I hear they're falling apart from the inside."

"Disappointing, but not surprising based on what I've seen here so far. Also, I don't care."

"Sorry, Braith. They leave me alone for the most part. This is a great conversation, but I'd like to keep it that way."

"What's your rate? I could always hire you."

"Five hundred."

I blinked a few times. "Right. Not paying that for information I can find out on my own with a little legwork."

He shrugged. "Works for me. It's more fun to watch things like this happen than actually be involved in them."

"Nothing is going to happen."

"I agree. What we disagree on is what 'nothing' actually means." Marcurio's teeth flashed white as he smiled at me.

I sighed, and thought back to the redhead, who had told me to meet him in the market. Looking down at my mead, I decided it was not a good time to pursue him as a lead. The alcohol was not deadening the beast's restlessness. At least it didn't seem to have an interest in the Imperial across from me.

"How are the rooms here?"

He shrugged. "Nothing to write home about, but they're better than sleeping on the road. And the food's okay."

"Good." I rose to my feet. "Want dinner? Looks like I'm in for the night."

"Ask Keerava to put mine on my tab. I'll take whatever she has the most of."

Picky about appearances. Not picky about food. Good to know. "Sure thing." 

I walked for the bar, got my room settled, and paid for my food. When I asked for just meat, and cheese if they had it, the Argonian nodded like this was a foregone conclusion. Good. She also gave me a battered old key and told me which door was mine, so I gestured for Marcurio to wait a moment, and went to put my things away. 

The room was small, as was the bed, but it smelled clean, and I'd be sleeping on my own within it, which was novel. I set my bow and arrows down and changed out of my furs and into a dress, but kept a knife on me, just in case. I cleaned myself up at the basin and pitcher, wiping the worst of the road grime off my arms and neck and running a damp rag over my hair. Then, I stashed my pack under the bed, locked the door behind me, and went back down to have dinner.

Two plates were waiting at the table, along with the Imperial, who hadn't started eating.

"You didn't need to wait for me," I said as I slipped back into my chair.

He shrugged. "They just showed up. I didn't know if you wanted a refill."

I looked at my half-full mug and focused on the feeling of pleasant warmth currently surrounding me. "No. I'm good for now."

"Fair enough." Marcurio picked up his spoon and dug into some sort of stew, while I took my fork and did the same to half a pheasant. It was nicely salted, and had also been cooked in butter. 

"Are there Bosmeri in town? This doesn't even have herbs on it. It's perfect."

"A few. One's a woodcutter, though, so I don't think Keerava is cooking for him."

"...Gods." I took several long swallows of mead. "He must have been born here."

"That, or he hates his homeland. What brings you so far north?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Work," he replied, though his smile was wide.

I studied him for a moment, probably because of the mead, but finally decided to be evasive, as well. "Also work."

"Fair enough. A faint aura of mystery for both of us it is."

I chuckled, and then we both spent a few minutes focusing on our food. It was a comfortable silence, which was unusual for me. Though, there had been a lot more Imperials in Valenwood than there had been Nords, just by virtue of location. Most of the Imperials I'd known back home were thieves and ne'er'do'wells, whereas all the Nords I knew now were very preoccupied with honor. 

We spent the rest of the night nursing one last mug of mead each and talking about nothing, but it was entertaining nothing. He shared a few stories of jobs that went a bit wrong, and clients who were a bit off, and I reciprocated with a few tales of thievery that weren't very incriminating. As we rose to go to our rooms at the end of the night, I laughed a little and smiled up at him.

"Consider yourself well sold, my friend. If I ever need some extra muscle, I’ll find you."

He smiled. "And that is an excellent end to a very pleasant evening. Good night, Braith."

I walked to my room and fell over on the bed, grimacing as I heard straw creak and rustle beneath me. If I did accept a room of my own from Skjor's at Jorrvaskr, maybe I would make myself a hammock. I missed the way my bed back home cupped me and swayed gently. All I would need to do it would be some hides, some sinew, and a couple of mammoth tusks. It might even be fun to hunt the mammoth myself. It was possible that one or more of the Companions would want to hunt with me, too. I drifted off to sleep as I tried to decide which of them I would want to tag along on a mammoth hunt. Dreams came before I'd found my answer.

The next morning, I woke and staggered directly to the pitcher of water, tilting it to my face and taking deep drinks in the hopes that it would seep directly into my brain and moisturize away the muddled feeling the mead had left behind. I downed half of it before my stomach informed me that it would much rather be full of greasy bacon, and that felt like a demand rather than a request. I brushed my hair, washed my hands, and then walked downstairs to beg for breakfast.

Marcurio was sitting back at the bench at the edge of the room, and waved at me when we made eye contact. He looked impeccably clean, but slightly rumpled. I finished my food order and then stumbled toward an empty table. When I sat down, I gestured at the empty chair across from me, raised an eyebrow at him, and shrugged. He rose and ambled over.

"Morning! Planning on getting into any trouble today?"

I groaned and rubbed at my temples. "Not before breakfast. I had two too many meads last night."

"Interesting words coming from someone who lives in a mead hall."

I stopped and looked up at him. "Uh-oh. Am I the topic of gossip today?"

"Very much so. Everyone is on high alert that a Companion came here 'to work.'"

"Work? I got a bear out of a house. Fuck. I never should have said who I was to that grumpy Nord by the gates."

Marcurio smiled. "So you're not here hunting down a thief for revenge? Because that's the speculation."

I resisted the urge to bury my face in my hands. "I clearly didn't think through all the side-effects of having a reputable cover."

"Good luck finding a member of the guild now." The innkeeper brought our plates over, and Marcurio thanked her before continuing. "They're not going to give you the time of day."

"I have someone to talk to. I just didn't want to do it yesterday." I dug into breakfast with something less than grace, and tried to eat my frustration whole. One careless comment, and I'd just probably doubled the time this 'side errand' was going to take. I hadn't been planning to go right back to Jorrvaskr after dealing with the bear, but I didn't want to be gone long enough to make Aela and Farkas start to worry. 

Marcurio seemed to sense my mood, because he let the conversation lapse. I waited until I'd cleaned my plate to resume talking. Thankfully, a bellyful of food had soothed the savage beast, and I was feeling far less frustrated than I had minutes before.

"Do you know the red-headed Nord in town? Dressed like a merchant, but probably isn't?"

He started laughing. "Who, Brynjolf? Why do you want to talk to him?"

"He started it. He wants to talk business."

He laughed harder. "Gods. Please let me come with you. No charge. I just want to see this all happen."

"Any chance you'll make me seem less legitimate?" I sighed.

"No knowing unless you try!"

"Finish eating, if you can." I rose and started walking for the stairs. "But if you're still laughing when I come back down, I'm going alone."

I debated putting on my armor, but decided I'd look more unassuming in a dress. I kept my knives, though, because only an idiot walked around a strange city unarmed. Protection had seemed less dire since becoming a werewolf, but shifting in the middle of the town would only make things worse. Better to solve things the person way. 

When I went back downstairs, Marcurio's eyes still had a merry sparkle to them, but he kept his laughter to himself. 

"Do you know where he keeps his stall in the market?"

"I think so. It's not far, either way. And he's a hard man to miss."

No. No, he wasn't. My heart thudded in my chest, and I quietly hated myself for a moment. The feeling grew even stronger when we stepped outside the inn doors, and I immediately caught his scent. I sighed and turned toward it. If Marcurio wondered how I knew which way to turn in the throng of the market, he didn't ask.

Soon, I found him lounging against the side of a wooden stand covered in colorful bottles. He was still wearing the fancy clothes, but the pleasant smile he'd given me the day before was gone. He straightened as I approached, and I felt Marcurio fall back behind me.

"Morning, lass."

I took a deep breath to gauge the situation and found that he was far less relaxed than he had been when we'd met the day before. I quietly sighed before I replied: "Morning. I thought I'd check in about that work you had."

"I'll bet. Unfortunately, I'm not in the habit of working with Companions."

I looked him over to make a point, and had to ignore the breadth of his upper arms and shoulders when I retorted, "What, you've never heard of a cover, 'merchant man?'"

"You misunderstand me. I'm a simple potion seller. My problems are beneath someone from a guild like yours."

I narrowed my eyes at him. 

"Yes, lass?"

Gods. I really wanted him to stop saying that word. "I'm disappointed," I managed. "Yesterday, you told me you never misread your marks, and yet...." I spread my hands in front of me.

He ran his tongue over his teeth. "I'm chalking it up to bad luck. I've had a run of it recently."

"Well, my luck has been pretty good. Maybe I can prove you wrong about me?"

"How?" He raised an eyebrow, but his face was still cold, and his scent mistrustful.

"Just keep an ear out." I gave him my best smile and felt gratified when I heard the faintest hiss of breath in response.

He looked down at me, and while the beast focused on how _tall_ and _warm_ and _strong_ he was, I focused on his oddly mer-like eyes. We studied one another for a moment, and then he shook his head. 

"You do what you want, lass, but I’ll have no Companion as a partner. It's bad for business."

My smile widened. "I am _anything_ but bad for business."

This time, I was the one who walked away. Marcurio fell into step beside me after a moment, shaking his head. "You better have a good plan," he said. "Brynjolf isn't typically one to change his mind."

I chuckled. "You lot of little faith."

"You've got to give us some credit, Braith. You literally walked into this city calling yourself a Companion, and none of them break laws. How could this be anything other than a trap meant to catch him doing something illegal?"

I sighed. "You were a great help, you know."

"I just met you yesterday. I would be a terrible character witness."

"Was it an entertaining conversation, at least?"

"Oh, very. Your smile is terrifying, by the way. I couldn't tell if you wanted to bed him or eat him."

"There's a difference?" When he blanched, I laughed. "Let's get you back to the inn. I have work to do." 

I got Marcurio back to his bench and then set off into the city to listen and get a feel for things. I changed out of my dress and into my full armor before I left, just in case word of my guild ties garnered someone's ire. I spent the mid-morning and afternoon walking the streets of the city, just watching people and eavesdropping on what conversations I could. I gathered from my time that there were a few prominent families that ran businesses, but that only one of them would be a good idea to hit. I saw Maven Black-Briar, the matriarch of a family that ran a meadery and allegedly had ties to the thieves' guild in the city. Honestly, I hated her on sight, but if I wanted to make any progress here, I would need her to not hate me back. So, I decided to focus on the Nord man who ran the fishery. 

I went back to the inn for the afternoon to have lunch and take a break. Marcurio was either out, or in his room, which was fine because my mind was whirling. I shrugged off the male Argonian, who had offered me a mead with my food, and started planning my evening. It would probably be a good idea to hit the general store first, because it was so close to the inn. If that went well, I could try the house of the man who ran the fishery. His wife was a Bosmer, which up here would have given him a reprieve from my thievery, but I'd actually caught sight of her wandering around in a padded cotton jacket. Since she didn't keep the Pact, she was no kinswoman of mine, and so her and her husband's money was fair game.

My plan was to rob those two locations and then let rumor spread that it had happened **.** The guild would take the blame, and then when they realized nobody in their ranks had done it, well... hopefully Brynjolf's thoughts would turn to me. I'd give it a day and then see if he came around. If not, I'd keep stealing. A Companion might pretend to be a thief—if they could manage it—but none of them would actually ever steal. This was the best way I could think of to prove to Brynjolf that I was someone worth working with. 

Lunch was a nice wedge of cheese and a rabbit haunch. I spent a little while watching the people in the inn, noting in amusement when a priest of Mara came in and tried to convince everyone to stop drinking. The innkeeper handled it surprisingly well, considering that any converts would have cost her coin. Then again, she likely didn't have much to worry about; this didn't seem like a city of the faithful.

I went up to my room once I tired of people watching and spent some time taking care of my weapons and armor. I was antsy and bored, but I waited as best I could until the sun went down. I could have gone for a run in the woods and let the beast out to play, but I wanted to be restless tonight. With luck, it would give me an edge to my senses. This would be the first time since taking Aela's blood that I’d be trying to steal anything, and I was happily anticipating the experience.

Sound picked up downstairs as the sun set, but I pulled out a book I'd taken from Jorrvaskr for the cart ride and focused on it instead of going down. I was debating just staying upstairs until the time came for me to start my spree, but then a thought occurred to me with such strength that I snapped my book shut mid-sentence. I set it aside, checked my face-print in the mirror, and tidied my hair before going downstairs to see if Marcurio was there.

He met my eyes across the main room of the inn and raised his eyebrows in surprise at the smile I gave him. He was sitting at a small table, eating dinner, which made it possible to slip into the chair next to him and lean in to speak in his ear. When I rested my hand on his shoulder for balance, he swallowed.

"Braith?"

"I need a cover," I murmured. "We should go upstairs together after you eat so I can be seen going into your room."

This appeared to put him back on solid ground, because he chuckled and turned his head toward mine, bringing our faces close. "I should charge you for this."

"You can if you want." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear.

"You trust easily for someone who does what you supposedly do, you know that? I could always report you to the guard." He bumped his nose against mine.

I gently pressed a finger to the chest of his robes, over the heart, and was surprised to feel a decent amount of muscle under the cloth of his robes. "I know when people lie." In theory, anyway. Aela said it was possible, but it was a trick I was still learning. It was a combination of heart rate, and sweat, and breathing. I had a feeling that it was going to turn out to be more of an art than a skill.

He took my hand in his, very lightly. "Look, I get the act, but you need to let me eat, or I _will_ get ideas despite myself."

Immediately, I sat back and settled in. Marcurio gave me a wink and then returned his attention to his meal. I rested my chin in my hands and debated the merits of getting something for myself. Though, the general store was bound to have food, right? I'd just pilfer some cheese later. Maybe some mushrooms, too. I caught myself licking my lips, and Marcurio started laughing.

"Do I even want to know what you're thinking about?"

"Food." 

He gestured at Keerava. 

"Nah. I'm good."

"Suit yourself." He pushed his plate away. "Can I interest you in a mead, at least?" 

I sniffed slightly, and caught the slightest hint of ulterior motive. When I just raised an eyebrow at him, he rubbed at the back of his neck, and didn't order one for either of us. Instead, he leaned in again, providing the rest of the room with the body language they needed to see for my cover to work. 

"Straight upstairs, then?"

I took his hand and rose, walking him backward toward the stairs. I would have slapped the smile he had on his face right off if this had been a serious liaison. But to his credit, the look fell away as we climbed the steps. He did smell a little bit like Farkas did if he and I spoke for too long, though, which I _really_ didn’t want to think about too hard.

"Which room is yours?" He pointed to a corner door, and I grinned. "One sec. Meet you there."

He opened the door and went in, and I ducked into my room to gather my things. Hopefully, it would look like I was getting settled in for the night if anyone caught me with the pack in my hand. I locked my room up, then ambled over to his door and let myself in.

Marcurio's room was a clone of mine, though it looked much more lived-in. There were a lot of books on a small shelf by the door, and his dresser was overflowing with clothes and sundries. Unfortunately, also like mine, there wasn't much space, and there was even less furniture to sit on. I set my things down by the door, picked a blank wall, and slid down it to the floor.

"Welcome to my great domain." He gestured expansively from his spot on the bed, and I laughed.

"At least you have your own room. I share with like six other people back at Jorrvaskr." For now, anyway. I felt slightly guilty for not going back right away despite the fact that they were clearing a room for me.

He settled onto the bed and pillowed his head in his arms. "That's one of the reasons I left the College. I like my privacy."

"What college?"

"Right, I forgot. The College of Winterhold. It's where you go to learn magic in Skyrim, assuming you don't want to cut out your own heart or turn into a hagraven."

I blinked. "That's a lot to process. Who cuts out their own heart?"

"Forsworn. I take it you've never been west."

"No. I think I need to do a lot more reading about this stupid province."

"Careful. In Riften, Skyrim is a _country_."

"Right. I keep forgetting. My only run-in with the war so far was getting captured with a bunch of Stormcloaks and then nearly getting my head cut off. Which I _will_ be killing General Tullius for," I added.

"You'll want to go to Windhelm and tell Jarl Ulfric that. You're a filthy elf to him, sure, but he can use all the help he can get right now."

The name sounded vaguely familiar. "Maybe work will lead me there someday."

"Speaking of work..." He looked over at me. "I don't mind being an alibi, but how are you planning on getting out of here unseen?"

I shrugged. "I'll go out the window and get on the roof."

"You're going to fall and break a leg."

"Excuse me? Bosmer." I pointed to my chest for emphasis. "We're built to climb and survive long falls."

"Sorry, sorry. Most of the Wood Elves I know are...." He trailed off.

This made me sigh. "You ever feel like you're in the worst place possible to be yourself?"

"Are you kidding? I'm an Imperial wizard in the Rift."

"Yeah, that was a dumb question. Which makes me wonder, yet again... why are you here?"

Marcurio gave me a long look, and I nearly told him to forget about it. Finally, he shrugged. 

"I was born here."

For some reason, that possibility had never crossed my mind. But then again, he only had the one name, which seemed unusual. Imperials were _very_ concerned about bloodlines. "...You might be the only Imperial I’ve met who isn't from the Empire."

"Don't I know it. But fair's fair. Why are _you_ here?"

I thunked my head against the wall behind me and stared up at the ceiling. "Well, I'm a wanted mer in Valenwood, and I broke out of a prison in the Empire before I made my run up here. I don't really have a choice."

He lifted his head and stared at me.

"What?"

"I'm feeling less and less sanguine about your plan for tonight."

"Sometimes jobs just go bad, no matter how skilled you are. And anyway, there's always Morrowind." I rose and started checking to make sure I had everything.

Marcurio sighed, and his head returned to the bed. "At least most of the guards here take bribes. And the things you rightfully stole, but that's better than jail."

"Good to know. If you do end up changing Brynjolf's mind, he'll have you in leathers faster than you can blink," he added.

I looked over at him. "Should I be worried?"

"What? No," he said, sitting up. "Better protection, for one."

I frowned down at my furs. "But these are so easy to move in."

He grinned at me. "It's a moot point anyway, because he's never going to let you in."

I walked over and lightly smacked his cheek. "You have such faith in me."

"I've seen plenty of would-be thieves come and go from my bench, Braith."

"Yeah, well. Good thing I'm already trained." I moved over to the room's single window and opened it, looking out. The face of the building was smooth, but I'd be able to get onto the roof with very little trouble. I waited until the street was empty, then hoisted myself onto the sill. "Wish me luck."

Marcurio's voice sounded resigned. "Good luck, Braith. I'll leave my door unlocked so you can get your things."

"Thanks! Back in a few." I gave the street one last check, and then made my way onto the roof of the inn.

****

One of the moons was setting by the time I made it back to the Bee and Barb. I was very tired, but I was also laden down with a decent chunk of gold, some gems, jewelry, and a couple of fliers I had found that looked like they might be interesting to Brynjolf. The contents of the cash box at the general store were in a pouch at my side, and I had every hope that word of the robbery would spread fast. I hadn’t even needed to make my way to the fishery. I paused in the street that ran the side of the inn and looked up to Marcurio's window. Closed. Ah, well. I might have made noise clambering back up there. I crept to the door, instead, and gently tested the latch.

Also closed. I grabbed my lucky lockpick from the braid in my hair and got to work, popping it in seconds. I opened it slowly and listened, just in case the owners were still bustling around downstairs. No heartbeats.

I let myself in and crept up the steps to Marcurio's room, relaxed by the faint, calm heartbeats coming from around the inn. It sounded the same in here as it had at most of the places I'd been that night, which meant that I was going to finish my little spree without being seen. When I jiggled the latch on his door, it clicked open easily. The room was thick with the smell of sleep as I entered, and I wrinkled my nose thoughtfully. Marcurio was definitely less pungent than the average Nord was. Slumping down onto the floor, I began stashing my ill-gotten gains in my pack. I dropped a ring, and it pinged a few times across the floor.

"Shit," I muttered.

A sleepy voice sounded from the bed. "Glad to see you're not in jail."

I walked for the ring on my hands and knees. "Go back to sleep. Sorry."

He yawned and rolled away from me toward the wall, baring an arm as he went. I paused for a moment, once again surprised by his lean muscularity. It would probably be very interesting to watch him work. He _had_ to do more than spells. 

Y’ffre’s teeth. Why wasn’t the beast attracted to _him_? He had a similar build and coloration to what I was used to. Unfortunate that the werewolf part of me seemed to have a new appreciation for hair and thews. 

After collecting the ring, I gathered all my things and returned to my room, undressing wearily and falling over onto the bed. I was so tired from the aftermath of sustained adrenaline that I barely even registered the straw of the mattress. I said a quiet prayer to Y'ffre that the effort had been worth it. I didn't even necessarily want to join the guild, but being denied the option had made me contrary. The Companions may have gotten me on my feet, but I knew better than to let it get to my head; I knew where I ranked in the world. 

My final thought was whether Farkas would be disappointed in me. It bothered me more than a little that it occurred to me at all.

I woke late the next morning, and took my time getting dressed and heading downstairs. I was starving, but I was also nervous to see if my plan had worked or not. It was probably going to take more than a couple of hours for word to get around, but the anticipation was enough to make me antsy. I might need to go for a run today and burn off the nervous energy. I washed up at the basin, put on my dress, and went out to see what the mood was in the inn's main room.

Marcurio was sitting at a small table again. He gave me a merry grin and waved me over as we made eye contact. I stopped to beg for breakfast from Keerava before making my way towards him.

"Bersi's wife barged in here first thing this morning. She's furious." When I looked a little blank, he elaborated: "The general store."

This made me grin. "Perfect. I love it when loudmouths make my life easy. Now I just need to wait for the rumor to spread."

"It won't take long."

"Good. Hopefully between that and what I found in their safe, Brynjolf will change his mind."

Marcurio perked up. "What did you find in the safe?"

"That's for me and Brynjolf to discuss."

He pouted in between bites of a pastry that smelled like it would put a Companion off with its sweetness. "I hate not knowing things."

"Sorry. I'm not taking any chances about him doubting where the information came from."

"So what are you going to do, go find him in the middle of the market and talk secrets?"

"Nope! I am sitting right here and letting him come to me."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? You seem very easily bored, like me."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "So play cards with me. You're waiting for work, too, right?"

"I could do that. I'm invested now, anyway." He pushed his bowl away and rose. "I'll go get my deck, assuming paper cards are okay."

"I'll live. I lost my set. They were metal. I could have killed a man with one if I hit the right spot."

He paused. "Is that... normal in Valenwood?"

"No. Mostly we play dice. But there were non-Bosmeri where I grew up, and a couple of them taught me cards. I ended up winning the deck from one of them."

"Dice do make more sense." He turned and began walking for the stairs. "Be right back."

It took us a while to find a game that we both knew, but we managed it. Even better, we were both terrible at it, so we spent most of our time laughing helplessly and arguing about rules. Eventually, we moved on to trying to teach each other our favorites. I was so invested in showing him how to play mine that when he paused and looked behind me, I was confused for a moment; I'd forgotten I was waiting for someone. I inhaled before turning, and smelled a very familiar scent just as the back of my neck prickled, informing me that someone tall—and _warm_ —was standing behind me. I licked my lips before I could stop myself and went very still.

"Marcurio," said Brynjolf. His voice was once again warm, rich, and pleasant.

"Brynjolf."

"Might I borrow your lass for a moment?"

My new Imperial friend met my eyes, scowled at my triumphant grin, and appeared to resign himself to eating crow. "Sure. I was just about to go grab a mead." He rose from the table and walked away without another word.

By the time Brynjolf had taken Marcurio's vacated chair, I had prepared myself mentally for eye contact. Unfortunately, I had not prepared myself for the return of his smile. The coldness of yesterday had faded from his face.

"I have to admit, lass, I've been trying to wrap my head around you being a Companion. Elves aren't generally lining up to join their ranks."

"That should tell you something about how comfortable it is for me at Jorrvaskr." Again, I thought of Farkas and felt guilty. 

The silence stretched long before he spoke again. "I kept my ears open as asked, lass. You have my attention."

I leaned forward and beamed. "I found something _very_ interesting in the general store's safe. Do you want to see it?"

"You certainly want to show it to me. I'll not say no."

"Good enough." I reached into my bodice and retrieved a folded piece of paper before passing it over. Brynjolf took it without comment, and I watched his eyes move through the words a little slowly, but steadily. Finally, he sat back in his chair.

"So Bersi thinks he can turn the rest of the shopkeepers against the guild, does he?"

"Apparently. Are you going to let him?"

"That's none of your business, lass."

"I'm Braith. Not lass." I held out my hand, which I realized was a mistake the instant he reached for it. His hand dwarfed mine, and his fingers were callused and strong. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore several vivid and confusing ideas that my beast brain supplied me in response to the sensation of his skin against mine.

"Brynjolf." He withdrew his hand and secreted the flyer away somewhere, which I would have found amusing if my heart had been pounding a little less frantically. What was I _doing_ , trying to work with this man? In the moment, the twins felt much safer for me to be around. I wasn't sure I trusted myself near this man and his pretty, pretty eyes.

No. I'd never been interested in humans. I wasn't going to start now.

"Will you reconsider cutting me out of your work?"

"I'm interested in seeing you in action, I'll admit." 

Gods. He meant work. _He meant work_. "I'm free now, if it's a good time for you."

"Aye." He rose and towered over me with a soft smile. "Come find me in the market in a bit."

And with that, he was gone. I stared after him without realizing it, and so nearly jumped out of my skin when Marcurio slumped back into his chair. He ignored my undignified squawk and had a sip of mead.

"Should I be offering my congratulations?"

"You should, in fact."

"I shouldn't be surprised. I've only known you two days, and you've already changed my mind."

"What do you mean?" 

"I don't usually work for free."

I frowned at him. "I can still pay you, you know."

He shook his head. "No, I've had fun. If you stick around Riften for a while, I'd love to keep chatting. Assuming I'm here, of course."

"I think I could manage that." I rose and gave him an apologetic smile. "Not right now, though. I have places to be." I smoothed the skirt of my dress to give my fingers something to do with their anxiety.

"Good luck!" Marcurio picked up his mug and began to walk back over to his bench. "Let me know how it goes."

I smoothed my dress again and left the inn, retracing the steps I'd taken yesterday to find Brynjolf at his stall. He was lounging against one of its posts, idly watching people passing by, rather than hawking his wares. When he spied me, he took a deep breath in through his nose and smiled ever-so-slightly. Was that relief? Was he happy to see me? I closed the distance between us, and his pleasant expression remained.

He leaned forward, elbows on the counter of his stall, and gestured me closer. "Are you ready to do a little job, lass? In line with what you discovered Bersi doing, as a matter of fact. We have a merchant here who needs to be taught a little lesson about speaking out against the guild." 

"Sure. What do you need me to do?"

"I'll create a distraction, and you'll steal a silver ring from that stall right over there." He carefully pointed at a nearby Argonian with impressive spines. "Then, I want you to plant the ring on that Dunmer." This time he pointed behind me. Thankfully, I'd seen the man in question as I was walking up, so I didn't have to turn or do anything else suspicious to know who he was.

"Easy enough."

"Off you go shopping then, lass. I'll start the distraction in a minute or two."

I set off to meander around and browse the wares of nearby stalls without another word. Most of them didn't have much of value, and I knew better than to filch something right before an actual job. So I smiled and said hello to the vendors, waved off their attempts to draw me in with their wares, and just made myself visible and within earshot of Brynjolf.

After a bit of wandering, I heard him begin calling to the crowd behind me. Several of the vendors muttered in derision as they heard him begin hawking potions, but the majority of the other shoppers wandered over. I had to laugh when I heard his snake oil sales pitch, and wondered if he had anyone hired in the crowd to back up his claims. I'd heard cons like this before, but usually from traveling men, who would milk a town of money, and then leave before it became clear that their wares did nothing. The other vendors seemed to be of the opinion that his goods were worthless, but the average citizens of Riften seemed taken in. 

And either way, it was an _excellent_ distraction.

I slipped toward the Argonian's stall, keeping an eye out for any guards as I approached. I waited until one passed, and then dipped to get at the lockbox, pulling my lockpick out of my braid as I went. The poor thing was no match for me, and clicked open with little resistance, revealing a silver ring with distinctly Argonian engraving. I palmed it, and then began to creep toward the Dunmer, who had stepped to the front of his stall to listen. Meanwhile, Brynjolf's pretty voice continued, echoing throughout the market. I'd kept half an eye on him, and hadn't seen him glance my way once. Clever, and hopefully a sign of trust that I would get the job done.

Slipping the ring into the man's pocket proved to be a bit more challenging, as the sun was at an angle that provided me little shade. I finally had to sidle up next to him and mutter, "Do you believe this guy?" while easing my hand into his pocket. I released the ring, and then stepped away and crept toward the front of the crowd, where I would be in plain sight. After a moment, Brynjolf caught my eye and winked once before beginning to wrap up his spiel. I saw a few people step forward to buy his potions, and he happily accepted their money before closing and locking his stall and walking toward the Bee and Barb. I took the hint and kept "shopping" for a few minutes before following him.

When I walked into the Bee and Barb, I saw him sitting at a corner table with his back to the wall, sipping a mead. When he saw me, that same slight smile flickered across his face. I sat down across from him and beamed.

"All done! Do you have any real work?"

"I might, at that. It's good to know that my ability to read people still has an almost perfect record." He slid a small coin pouch across the table. I took it without counting it.

"'Almost?'"

He shrugged. "It may be hard to con a conman, but it's still possible, lass."

I sensed that this was a sensitive subject, and took the hint to avoid it. "I should probably leave town in a couple of days, but if you have anything else you need done, let me know."

"Why don't you come 'round and see the rest of us before you go, at least? We have a hideout beneath the city. You'll find the entrance down in the canals, behind a gate."

"Sure." It wouldn't hurt to see their operation. I was painfully curious, and had put in a decent amount of effort by this point. "I'll head there this evening."

This time, his smile was slow, and full, and left me feeling warm. "I look forward to seeing you there, lass."

With that he rose, and left me with the butterflies that had taken up residence in my stomach. The second he was gone, I asked for a mead.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited slightly to fix a small continuity error.


End file.
